What is a ‘Traveling Library’?
Thank you
Here is the information from the EndNote Help.
The Traveling Library
Each formatted citation in your Word document is saved with field codes that embed reference data in the document. The paper contains a “Traveling Library” of references cited.
The first time a citation is formatted, EndNote looks in the open library and finds the corresponding reference. If you later reformat, EndNote again looks in the open library for that reference. However, if the library is not available or not open, EndNote uses the Traveling Library for reference information.
Because reference data is kept with each formatted citation, you can collaborate with other authors on a paper without each author having the same EndNote library.
The reference data saved with each citation includes all fields except Notes, Abstract, and Figure.
Note: Do not unformat your document if you do not have the original references in your libraries. Unlike formatted citations, unformatted citations require that you have the corresponding EndNote libraries open in order to format references.
So beyond the above definition the Traveling Library is how EndNote and Word work together. Whenever you have a document with citations and a bibliography inserted by EndNote you will have a Traveling Library in the document.
The Traveling Library will allow another user to get a copy of the references used in the document into their library or a new library.
The Traveling Library can help you restore the references in the document if you were to delete or lost your library by allowing you to export the references used in the document into a current library or a new library.
You can find those steps here:
If you were to use Convert to Unformatted Citations command you would lose the Traveling Library but in some cases that is required to update the document or repair a damaged document.
See the following articles:
Let us know if you have any additional questions.