08/21/2009

Folks

Most of you remember our review of Knowledgebase that we conducted a little over 3 years ago. Well, it is time to conduct another review. I know everyone’s schedule is loaded, but Knowledgebase is our repository of about 3000 sample documents , publications and legal opinions that is available to staff internally as well to cities from the MTAS website and we need to keep it as current as possible.

The goal of the review is to weed out or replace materials that are NOT current so that anyone who uses materials from KB can do so with confidence.

This review requires the participation of all consultants (subject experts) as the database covers subjects from animal control to zoning. All of the subjects have been divided amongst the consulting staff according to area of specialty (see attachment). This allocation has been reviewed with your Team Leader. If you have a question or concern with your allocation please contact your Team Leader and Sharon.

We will start this endeavor on September 14. Each person will be sent a short list of the subjects for which they are responsible along with instructions on how to get started. You will also be contacted by either Becky or Frances to answer your questions and to walk you through the database review mechanics.

Points to remember:
· MTAS publications (including Hot Topics and Technical Bulletins) in KB will not be necessarily reviewed as part of this review but will be reviewed according to the pubs review process;
· Legal opinions can be reviewed by consultants other than legal consultants but can also be referred to the legal consultants as needed.

We hope to complete this review as soon as possible but no later than March 2010.

In closing, this review should be less stressful than the one in 2006 because many of you have been active participants in “gate-keeping” the material that has been entered into Knowledgebase since then.

As always, thanks for all you do and thanks in advance for your efforts on this project. Speaking of which, you should open this as a project under All Cities with Database Maintenance as the project title. This is not administration.

Mike