I have an EndNote library of over 1500 records, 98% with attached pdfs. I am using version x7.7.1. My library is far from perfect. Initially, I liked to name the pdfs with too many characters, and attached pdfs would become detached. But I am gradually cleaning that up, with a long way to go.
A couple of days ago, a co-worker who had completed a literature search, asked how he could share those references. Being the foremost user in my office, I undertook an experiment before I advised him. In my library, I have created several groups. I noticed that one such group had only 8 records. After looking into the export command, I decided that it would be better to save a compressed library of that specific group. I chose to save the pdfs of the files in that group, and I changed the filename to reflect the name of the group plus the name “Group” added to it. The saving operation lasted for some time, surprisingly, but it finished.
I opened Windows Explorer and navigated to the folder where I had saved this compressed file. I saw the name of the compressed library and saw the folder with the name of the compressed library, concatenated with “.Data.” However, I noticed 500 to 600 pdfs in the pdf folder of that data folder. All of this was placed at the same folder level as my main “Databases” folder. Puzzled, but satisfied that something had happened, I finished for the day.
I resumed the next morning. I needed to answer the question for myself whether opening the compressed library resulted in an uncompressed library. It did. However, it was not until this point that I discovered that the Databases folder with my main library and several smaller libraries was missing.
I have not verified this yet, but I suspect that the algorithm of saving pdfs with a group in a compressed library might be exclusionary. That is, it saves everything (including the unattached files that I have not cleaned up), that is not outside of the group being compressed. Again, that is just unverified conjecture. Future spare time will be spent on verification. However, I have no idea what happened to that Databases folder? Luckily, I backed up two current versions of my two most important libraries on a network drive over the weekend, and I have added only four or five references since then that will be easy to reconstruct. I believe that other libraries are backed up in another place. So I have not lost everything. However, what happened? If it there is an easy solution to restore what was before, I would do that rather than spend hours restoring files from the backup.
Any thoughts, community?