Have you ever heard of The Music Man? It’s a musical, one of those things where people break into synchronized, harmonized song & dance whenever they’re overtaken by strong emotion, thinking it will solve their problems. I understand musicals aren’t in everyone’s Top-7,429-Things-To-Do-In-My-Freetime list, but consider giving this one a look. It’s got scams! Scandal! Seventy-six trombones!

There’s a song in the middle, “Marion the Librarian” that often reels through my mind when observing SharePoint setups. (Warning: You may wish to view before continuing. Tap into an earworm!) Many organizations make their advances toward “SharePoint the Librarian.” And they love that librarian madly, madly, madly.

File this in the Subject drawer under “A” for archaic: your kids are never going to use a card catalog. We just don’t need to find information that way anymore.  We use metadata, relevance and popularity. We don’t need to troll shelves to locate a book and read the blurb to make sure it’s what we were looking for—and no need to worry that someone else may have it checked out! We expect a computer to do this for us; there is too much information, we can’t afford to otherwise.

Next time you’re about to commit to adding another file, form, folder to your Project Management process:

1)      Be sure that you’ve ruled out keeping it in a SharePoint list.

2)      If it must go into a library, make sure you have attributes (fields) in its properties—beyond Size and Date Last Modified—with values that aid in its discovery and allow people to easily assess its relevance.

3)      Ask if your SharePoint administrator has installed a pdf iFilter so you can find content locked in searchable pdfs

4)      Treat the office to a song commemorating  the wise lyrics of Meredith Wilson:

 “Please make your selection and leave.”
    “I have.”
 “What do you want to take out?”
   “The librarian!”