Do you ever look at your PC and marvel that it contains your entire life? Photos. Videos. Music files and documents. It's all right there, and it's all very convenient—that is, until you find yourself scouring your hard drive, other PCs on your network, and your external hard drive for a single file. And that's where the libraries in Windows 7 come in handy.
- So what exactly is a library anyway?: Libraries are a new way to organize all your files in Windows 7 to make it easier to find what you're looking for. You can access your libraries by clicking the Start button Picture of the Start button, typing Libraries in the search box, and then selecting it from the list. Here, you'll see the four default libraries that come in Windows 7: Documents, Music, Pictures, and Videos, as well as Podcasts, a new library my Zune created.
"Wait a minute," I hear you say, "I had folders for documents, music, pictures, and videos before. So what's the difference?" Great question. Here's how it works.
- File folders vs. libraries: A file folder is exactly what it sounds like: part of a filing system where you organize documents, photos, and so on. File folders are great—but they're just like a file cabinet because they contain files from just one place, like the hard drive on your PC.
A library, on the other hand, is a dynamic way to group together similar files without having to move or reorganize the actual file folders. When you work with a library, you're essentially creating shortcuts to different file locations. And it doesn't even matter where that file location is; it can be on your hard drive, another PC in your homegroup, or even on an external drive.
- See all your photos at once: Let's use the Pictures library as an example. I don't know about you, but managing years' worth of photos has always been a hassle for me. In the past, I'd have all my photos on my PC, but periodically copy them to an external hard drive for safety. As I took new photos, it got pretty confusing trying to organize them. Inevitably, I'd end up copying one folder over another and losing files—or creating two different folders with the same pictures.
With the Pictures library, I can see all my photos at once, no matter where they are. What's cool about that is I can still move photos from my hard drive to my external drive—and still view, find, and work with them as if they were all in the same folder.
- Add file locations to your Pictures library: Here's how I set up my Pictures library to include the photos on my external hard drive.
First, I click the 2 locations link under Pictures library up towards the top of the screen. Then, in the Pictures Library Locations dialog box, I click Add, navigate to Computer, and click My Book (E:). On the next screen, I select Photo archives and click Include Folder. Voilà! Now, every time I open my Pictures library, it'll show me images from both my PC and my external hard drive.
- Sort your files and find them faster: Here's how it looks when I've added photos from my external hard drive into the Pictures library on my PC. Look at the left column—see the new Photo archives folder? That's actually still on my external hard drive. But when I sort the pictures in my library—say by tag, date, or folder—all the photos are sorted together. So no matter where I've got pictures from 2005 I can search through them as though they are all in one spot.
- Delete a location: Let's say you no longer want to include a particular location from your library. That's just as easy. Click the locations link under Pictures library near the top of the screen. In the Pictures Library Locations dialog box, highlight the location you no longer want to include, and then click Remove.
Don't worry—you haven't deleted the actual file folder. All its contents still exist. That's because libraries don't actually store items. Instead, they simply monitor the folders that you've selected. Of course, if you delete the folder itself, then it won't show up in a library.
And don't worry about accidentally deleting one of the default libraries either. You can easily restore it by right-clicking Libraries and then clicking Restore default libraries.
- Create your own libraries: There's another cool thing about libraries: You can create your own. That way you can organize all kinds of stuff into one spot. To create one, just click New library. In this case, I'm making it easy to find photos, docs, and video clips about Whidbey Island by collecting folders from across my PC and external hard drive. It's as simple as pointing and clicking, and will save me tons of time if I ever get around to writing that book.
So go ahead—create your own libraries and get your files organized. You'll be glad you did.
About the author:Robbin Young has written about Windows since before there was a Windows—her first PC was an AST Premium 286 running DOS 3.0. If you know what that is, you too may have nostalgic feelings when you see C:\. As a tech writer, Robbin has the obligatory tech writer's cat. She, her husband, and the cat live in Seattle.
