Files can be copied into the collection using the drag-and-drop method introduced earlier. After selecting one or more files and directories, you initiate a drag action by clicking and holding over any selected item. The mouse pointer changes into a ghost of the item (if just one was selected) or the number of selected items (if more than one was selected). The Status Area changes to reflect the beginning of a drag.

Keeping the mouse button pressed, move the mouse around the screen. Areas that become highlighted when you move over them are valid drop targets, places where you can drop the selected items. If you drop items into a tree, they are copied from their origin into the place where you dropped them.

To copy files into your collection, select them from the Workspace (???) and drag them into a folder within your collection. You can copy directories as well. You can also copy files about within the same tree if you wish. If you drag files from an existing collection which contains metadata information for them, the metadata will be automatically imported along with the files. (See Adding Metadata for a detailed explanation of metadata and its use in the Librarian Interface.)

Some extra rules apply when copying multiple files. No matter what directory structure the files occupied before you copied them, they are all placed in the target folder at the same level. If you try to copy two files with the same name into the same folder, the Librarian Interface will ask whether you want to overwrite the first one. If you say No, the file in question will not be copied, but the other files will. If instead you wish to cancel all remaining copy actions click the stop button as described in the 'Gather' View.

Another rule is that only the 'highest' items in a selection will be moved. A folder is higher than its children, which are higher than their own children, and so on. If you choose several files within a folder and the folder itself, the folder will be copied in its entirety and your selections within it will be ignored.

When you add a file, the Librarian Interface also performs a further task. It searches through the source directories for auxiliary files which contain metadata previously assigned to the target file, and if found begins a process of importing this metadata. As this operation proceeds, you may be prompted several times to provide extra information to enable the Librarian Interface to correctly match the imported metadata to metadata you may have already added to your collection. This process involves many different prompts, which are described in the section titled Importing Previously Assigned Metadata.

In principle, only valid drop targets are highlighted, so most drops should succeed. However, successful drops must meet several conditions: they must be dropped on a valid target; they must be dropped into some other place than where the drag started; they must be dropped into a folder, not a file; and the target must not be read-only.