The Librarian Interface starts with the Gather view. If, later, you need to return to this view, notice the tabs (like file-cabinet tabs) directly below the menu bar. Clicking a tab opens the view with that name. To open the Gather view, click on the tab labelled Gather.

There are two large areas titled 'Workspace' and 'Collection'. These are used to move files into and out of your collection. They contain 'file trees', which are graphical structures that represent directories (shown with folder icons) and the files they contain.

Select any item in the tree by clicking on it once. (There are more ways; see below.) Double-clicking a directory node whose children (files and directories) are not shown expands that directory by making its children visible. Double clicking an expanded directory node collapses it again. You can also expand and collapse directories by clicking on the little switch symbol that precedes the folder name. If you double-click on a file the Librarian Interface will attempt to open it in whatever program is best suited to view it. If you press [F2] (Function Key 2) while a file or directory is selected (or if you did not double-click quickly enough), a black box will appear around the selected item, with a flashing cursor. This visual prompt indicates that you can now edit the name of the selected item. (As explained below, you can only do this if the item is not read-only). When you have finished editing, press [Enter], or click anywhere else on the program screen, to leave edit mode. The areas containing the trees are also scrollable as explained earlier.

There are two different file trees; the Workspace and the Collection. The Workspace contains the sources of data that are available to the Librarian Interface. These include: the complete local file system (including all disk and CD-ROM drives), the contents of existing Greenstone collections, the public download space if Web mirroring is enabled, and the private download space, again only if mirroring is enabled. The files in this tree are read-only: you can copy and view them but you cannot move, delete, or edit them. Navigate around this tree until you find the files you want to include in your collection. The Collection represents the contents of your collection so far, and can be fully edited except the very top folder (which can never be deleted). Initially, it will be empty. This tree is shared with the MetaEdit view described later in this document.

If you move the mouse pointer over the small vertical grey bar that separates the two trees, the shape of the pointer changes, and you can alter the two spaces by pressing and dragging the mouse, widening one while shrinking the other.

At the bottom are the Status Area and the Control Buttons. The Status Area tells you about the state of the Librarian Interface: how many items you have selected and what action you are requesting. When you start performing actions that involve files it reports on the progress of the operation. Actions involving large files can take some time to complete, but you needn't wait. While one action is being performed you can initiate others, and they will just wait until the current action is complete. This feature allows you to perform other actions, or visit other views, without having to wait for the current action to finish.

The three large Control Buttons occupy the lower right corner of the screen. The first is the Cancel Action button, which is used to immediately cancel any file movement tasks that are occurring or pending. The next is the New Folder button, which is used to create new folders: it shows a picture of a folder (see Creating folders). The last is the Delete button, which is used to remove files; it shows a garbage can.

There are more powerful techniques for file selection. To select several contiguous items, select the one at the start of the range and then hold down a [Shift] key while clicking on the one at the end of the range -- the selection will encompass all intervening items. You can select non-sequential files by holding down the [Ctrl] key while clicking on the target item. These two methods, which are common to all Microsoft Windows applications, can be used in combination to select groups of non-adjacent items.

There are sometimes folders in your filespace that have special significance such as the root folder of your home web pages, or perhaps a 'drop-box' used as the destination folder for resources from other programs. To provide move convenient access to these directories, which may otherwise appear deep within the workspace tree, you may crate a special 'mapping' to such a folder, causing it to appear at the first level of the tree. For instance the 'Greenstone Collections' folder is simply a special mapping to the greenstone collections folder. To create a mapping, expand the workspace tree so that the special folder is visible, then right button mouse click over the folder. A menu should appear with the option the 'map' the folder. If you choose this option a prompt will appear asking you for a meaningful alias for this folder. Providing a name and clicking OK will create the new special folder mapping at the top level of the tree. Now you access the files in the special folder via this aliased shortcut, or by expanding the tree as before. To remove a special mapping you once again right click over the mapped folder. The option to remove the mapped folder is available. Note that no confirmation is asked for when removing the mapping.

Files and directories in the Workspace tree are read-only and the Librarian Interface cannot change them. This protects other people's collections, and also your own files. The topmost directory of the Collection tree, which has your collection name as a title, is also read-only. If you try to edit these, nothing will happen.