Is it possible to have a single document referenced by two different document libraries?

Question

Business Requirements:

My customer wants to be able to associate one document with multiple projects. E.g., a set of specifications for a piece of equipment that will be used in multiple projects. These specifications may change over time but they will always be consistent between the two projects. This document will have the same content type but different values depending on the project.

I'm a developer so I don't mind using the object model but I would prefer OOTB and I still don't see any elegant way of accomplishing the above requirements.

Question:

1) Is it possible to have a single document referenced by two different document libraries?

2) Is it possible for the above document to have different values for its attributes in each of the document libraries?

3) If 1 and 2 is not possible, is it possible to give a single document in a document library two different sets of attributes?

Solution

I went with using link to a document. This is a chart I used to compare the two options I was considering:

Answer 1

1. In a way yes - try using the "Link to a document" content type instead of the document. or use the "Send To" option which would create a syncronized copy of the document (multiple locations possible) which can be easily maintained.
2. In the case of Send To, yes, i believe -which should also answer your 3rd question (but if not)

Hope it helps, C:\Marius

Answer 2

Link to document content type is what you want as Marius mentioned. You can extend the content type to include any metadata you need allowing you to have different sets of metadata for the same file in different locations.