Library location

[Anonymous]

I'm about to start putting together a custom library to be used alongside the standard archicad 9 library in my office (of 7 Archicad users).

Can this new library live on our server, or is it better (in terms of loading speeds + data protection) to have a copy on each machine?

And should I create a .PLA containing the new library parts, or is leaving it as a series of folders ok? I guess archiving it makes it harder for people to tamper with the parts.

[TomWaltz]

We have the Archicad Library (100+ MB PLA) on the local machines.

The office library (~10 MB of misc GSM files) is in the CAD_Standards folder on the network.

Each project library (~1 MB of misc GSM files) is in its own project drawings folder.

[Anonymous]

That's how we have it at the moment (except for the office library.)

So there are no issues with sharing a library (probably 10mb max) off a server?

[Anonymous]

Tom wrote:
That's how we have it at the moment (except for the office library.)

So there are no issues with sharing a library (probably 10mb max) off a server?

None so far as I have seen. Larger libraries can slow things down a bit but I know plenty of firms that put everything on the server without any trouble.

[TomWaltz]

Tom wrote:
That's how we have it at the moment (except for the office library.)

So there are no issues with sharing a library (probably 10mb max) off a server?

None that I have seen (over 3 years, with 30 people). I have all the GSM files write-protected so no one accidentally changes or deletes them.

[Andy Thomson]

I think the 'tripartite' library scheme is pretty much accepted as the best way to do things:

1 - AC Library - PLA - , local HD, can be overwritten in entirety when updated
2 - Office Library - PLA - , located on the server (users can drag a copy locally if they find it slow, periodically updated with an email to notify users)
3 - Project-Specific Library - Loose Folders - we locate all of ours by project number in subfolders on our server under a folder called called 'Project Libraries'

The third one, as a server location makes it easier for me to police, and occasionally run 'no-clone' to make sure people are creating too many unnecessary duplicates/folders, etc.

Oh, and this one:

4 - Archived Libraries - 6, 7, etc...

We have many old projects, old custom libraries, etc. that occasionally need to get loaded. I turn all of these into PLA files, for example, I have a 'no-cloned' PLA of libraries 6 and 7, in case we open and need something of that vintage whose parts cannot be 'found' in our 9 Libs.