To create a new collection, open the [F]ile menu and choose the menu item [N]ew. A new form, the New Collection Prompt, appears. Several fields need to be filled out. Click in any field (the white area) to move the cursor there, or press [Tab] to cycle through the fields (and buttons). You can change any value you enter later, in the 'Design' view.

The collection title is the text that will be displayed at the top of your collection's homepage, and can be any length. You should not use the quotation character (") in this (or any other) text field; if you do the Librarian Interface will remove it.

The collection name is the actual file name of your collection, under which it will be saved to disk. The Librarian Interface uses this name in several places. It is limited to seven characters in length. Also note that it must be unique, and that if a collection with this name already exists the new collection action will fail with an error message. If this happens you will be returned to the new collection prompt and the name field will be highlit to indicate the file clash.

The author's email must be a valid email address.

The collection description should describe, in as much detail as possible, what your new collection is about. It is unlimited in length, and you can use the [Enter] key to break it into paragraphs. You cannot use the [Tab] key to set margins, because this key shifts the focus to one of the buttons at the bottom of the screen.

The final field allows you to chose which metadata sets are to be available within your collection. All the metadata sets found in the Librarian Interface metadata directory will be shown here. Click the checkbox next to the sets you want to add. You may of course choose to start a new collection with no metadata sets loaded. Regardless one metadata set is always loaded, "Greenstone.mds".

Once you have entered information in these fields, click the [O]K button to create the collection.

If at any time you decide not to create a new collection, click the [C]ancel button. The prompt will close and you will return to the main screen.

Buttons, like menus, have one character underlined. If you press [ALT] and the underlined character at the same time, the response will be just as if you clicked the button. (This goes for most buttons in the Librarian Interface.)

If a collection is already open and you ask for a new one, a Save Collection prompt appears before the New Collection prompt. This is described in the next section, saving your collection. You have to finish with this prompt before the New Collection prompt will appear.

Once a collection has been created these details can be changed in the Design view.