Manage your Files effectively with Libraries

We are all used to keeping our documents organised in folders on our PCs - it's the way things have been done for years - but libraries are a brilliant Windows 7 feature designed to make things easier.

You can use Libraries to quickly access all the files of a particular type without having to hunt through endless folders. For example, I have photos stored in dozens of folders on my hard drive - some within My Documents, some within My Pictures and others on the desktop. By using libraries, I can see all of these folders in one handy location without any fuss or hassle.

Libraries can also be tailored to suit other files, and that's what I'm going to explain to you here. Once you've tried using them to manage your files, you'll wonder how you ever lived without them!

Make the most of Libraries

1. Built-in Libraries:
   Windows has a number of built-in libraries. To see these, launch Explorer from the taskbar shortcut and look at the bottom portion of the left hand navigation bar. You'll see that there are four ready made libraries for you to use: Documents, Music, Pictures and Video. Each library is made up of the contents of one or more regular folders, consolidating everything into one view.
2. Library structure:
   Each library is made up of one or more folders - in the case of Documents, for instance, your own personal Documents folder is included along with the shared Public Documents folders. Click the arrow next to any library to expand it and see the folders it contains. If there's a library you don't use, you can hide it by right clicking its name and then clicking 'Don't show in navigation
3. Customising Libraries:
   Right-click a library and select 'Properties'. If there are folders within the library that you don't want there, select them and click 'Remove'. Conversely, you can click the 'Include a folder' button and select another folder for inclusion in the library - just choose one and click 'Include folder'
4. Create new Libraries:
   New libraries can be easily created by right clicking Libraries in the Explorer navigation pane and then clicking 'New' followed by 'Library'. Type a name and press [Enter]. You can then start to customise your library by accessing the Properties dialog as described in the previous step.
5. Using Librarian
   There's plenty of scope to organising files with libraries using the options built into Windows, but for a few extra options, install WinAero Librarian from your free disc. Open up the Windows 7 folder and double-click the file named 'Librarian' to launch the program. Choose one of your existing libraries and click 'Libraries' followed by 'Change'. You can add new folders to the library by clicking the 'Add' button. Librarian lets you include network folders and other locations that can't usually be added to a library.
6. Change your icon
   If you have a lot of libraries it can become difficult to differentiate between them at a glance, but you can change icons to make things easier. In the 'Change library settings' dialog, click the 'Change icon' button, browse through the selection and click 'OK' when you're done. There are lots of files containing icons on your hard drive - try looking for EXE and DLL files.
7. All done
   That's all there is to it. If you've spent years working with folders, the move to libraries may seem a little strange to start with, but you'll very quickly discover just what great time-savers they can be. Stick with the default libraries and you'll be off to a good start, but spend time creating and customising your own and they become seriously powerful.