# Preserve dates added and last modified info when copy references between libraries

**URL:** <https://community.endnote.com/t/preserve-dates-added-and-last-modified-info-when-copy-references-between-libraries/290822>\
**Category:** EndNote How To\
**Created:** [January 27, 2011, 3:55pm UTC](https://community.endnote.com/t/preserve-dates-added-and-last-modified-info-when-copy-references-between-libraries/290822 "2011-01-27T15:55:12Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![jonlewin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e99b99/32.png) [@jonlewin](https://community.endnote.com/u/jonlewin)\
**Post date:** [January 27, 2011, 3:55pm UTC](https://community.endnote.com/t/preserve-dates-added-and-last-modified-info-when-copy-references-between-libraries/290822/1 "2011-01-27T15:55:12Z")

</div>

Hi there.&nbsp;

I’d like to be able to preserve the ‘Added to Library’ and ‘Last Modified’ date information in one Endnote library when copying references to a ‘master’ library. As best I can figure, the way to do this \*would\* be to copy the content of those fields to a spare ‘Custom’ field before exporting – the only problem being that those two fields don’t appear in the list under ‘Change and Move Fields…’. I can see you wouldn’t want to allow users to change them, but a copy would be nice as it’s important information (to me, anyway).

Any ideas?

Cheers

Jon

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![jonlewin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e99b99/32.png) [@jonlewin](https://community.endnote.com/u/jonlewin)\
**Post date:** [January 27, 2011, 10:53pm UTC](https://community.endnote.com/t/preserve-dates-added-and-last-modified-info-when-copy-references-between-libraries/290822/3 "2011-01-27T22:53:11Z")

</div>

Thanks. That confirms my suspicion that there’s no easy solution… for now. I’ll try to persuade the developers to get on the case by posting a suggestion.

Jon

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![hminney](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/f17d59/32.png) [@hminney](https://community.endnote.com/u/hminney)\
**Post date:** [June 29, 2026, 8:36pm UTC](https://community.endnote.com/t/preserve-dates-added-and-last-modified-info-when-copy-references-between-libraries/290822/4 "2026-06-29T20:36:53Z")

</div>

Here’s a way to copy the 'Added to library" field that will probably work for ‘last modified’. Warning - it isn’t pretty!

> [@Copy from "added to library" to "access date"](https://community.endnote.com/t/copy-from-added-to-library-to-access-date/311613/4):
>
> A lot of years later but I thought I’d use AI to solve this. 6,415 records later and it worked smoothly. The date I accessed and read these records is the date I added them to my EndNote - it is kind-of obvious! This is “At Risk” and I’m going to explain the steps, not give the script, so you go through the steps. It’s probably different with different versions of EndNote: Read this first — the non-negotiable safety bits An EndNote library is two things that must stay paired: the .enl file…