Managing documents in libraries

The library management tasks that you can perform depend on whether you are working with a community library or a linked library.

Libraries and Linked Libraries

Linked Libraries allow you to connect a community to an existing Library (or FileNet® teamspace). Linked Libraries allow a community to reference the content of libraries and teamspaces owned by another community or even owned by apps outside of Connections such as IBM® Content Navigator. In contrast to a community library, the access control of a Linked Library is not controlled by the community membership.

How Libraries work with Connections Content Manager

When the Connections Content Manager add-on is deployed, community owners can create libraries directly from a community using the Library app. Community owners can also link to existing libraries using the Linked Library app available in Connections 3.0.1 and later. In this documentation, the libraries created directly from a community using the Library app are referred to as community libraries. The libraries connected to a community using the Linked Library app are referred to as linked libraries. Community libraries are currently only supported in IBM® FileNet® Content Manager deployments. Linked libraries are supported by IBM® FileNet® Content Manager and IBM® Content Manager.

Notes:

• Access to linked libraries is managed on the Enterprise Content Management (ECM) server unlike community libraries, where the access is managed from the community. Access to a linked library does not include the community owners and members groups, so having access to a community does not necessarily mean that you have access to its linked libraries. You can see the Linked Library app but unless you have access to the linked library, you cannot see any content in the library.
• If you remove the Linked Library app from your community, the linked library content is not deleted from the ECM server. You can access the content by adding the Linked Library app to your community again and recreating the connection with the ECM server. If you remove the Library app from your community, the associated library content is permanently removed from your community and cannot be retrieved.
• You can search for files in community libraries, however, searching in linked libraries is disabled by default. If search is enabled for linked libraries, a Linked Libraries tab is available in your Communities search results. Linked library search results display all matching files in the library. The search results do not include any social features, such as tagging, or document type information. When you click a search result, you are taken to a generic landing page that is outside the scope of a community. When a linked library is connected to a subfolder of a library, the search results are scoped to the library rather than to the folder.