First off, I WASN'T trying to imply that learning to make custom parts is a "rite of passage" or that nobody should help him... I would have made a part for him myself if I hadn't had a final exam coming up shortly after I posted :wink:
Just suggesting that he check it out, to make life easier in the future.
Secondly, you're right, the library system isn't such a problem if your PC's are always running and networked and you can keep a deliberate, organized repository of libraries. But when I use multiple PC's that aren't always networked, and start putting different parts in copies of the same library on different computers, I end up with multiple copies of the same library (for me, the microchip PIC library tends to get this way) with slightly different contents, all of them including all the "stock" parts, and a handful of things that I've added. I can then open all the different versions of the library and copy the parts I want into the main one and then distribute that file to the various computers, but that can be tedious, especially if you might have various revisions of the same part or something, plus you have to make sure you get all the right packages copied over as well. I think what it boils down to is that I wish there was an automated way to MERGE/UPDATE libraries. Like, someone could send me one of their eagle libraries which matched one of mine, but had a few different parts in it, and I could merge them and have eagle only add the parts to mine which were new or newer than existing ones in my library, withouth having to manually go through and transfer them all, and check which ones looked more recent. Essentially, think of it like the way windows XP does folder copying - if you try to paste a folder full of files over one with the same name, it will basically combine the contents. Also, not that this is very pertinent to the present discussion, but it would be nice if the library hierarchy could go more than 3 levels (lib file name, part series, device)
While you're right, this may not be a huge problem for sharing libraries, it's kept me from bothering with any of the user-submitted parts libraries listed on the cadsoft website, preferring to make my own rather than deal with it, that's why I made my original statement. I admit, saying it's downright horrible is an overstatement, it's fine depending on the use, it's just cumbersome in my situation.