Separating Playlists/outside mp3s and Library

When playing an mp3 file downloaded from the 'net, it is automatically permanently added to the iTunes Library. This is fine unless the mp3 file is, say, 60 min. long, and I only want to hear it once in a while (annoying when playing the Library in "shuffle" mode!) Is there a way to avoid this? Also, is it possible to delete an mp3 file from the Library, but retain it in the Playlist? First post...please be gentle!
Thanks!
Mark

Curt;
Thanks for the suggestion. I have checked the two offending files and there seems to be nothing different about them. They were digitized at 64 kb/s - the same as the others made on the same day which transfer to and play on my iPod. I have even selected them in the iTunes library and used Advanced--> convert to MP3. They get resampled and converted to 128 kb/s (and the size of each file doubles) but the result is still the same - they go into the Unknown podcast folder and will not load on my iPod.
The thing that seems to be different about them is that they automatically go into the podcast folder rather than into a music folder.
The iPod is using version 1.2 software and my iTunes is version 5.0.1
Tony

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Hi, and thanks again for your input. I will do whatever works. Conversion works fine to convert, but then I have to hunt down each of the 200 newly converted songs to recreate the playlist of mp3s, and then hunt down each of the old files in the library to delete them.
So I tried to figure out another way to do it. It occured to me that if I exported the songs and then re-imported them, then they would be imported as mp3s due to the preference setting in Itunes, but I can't make that happen (they come back in as m4a). If I could, I thought I could just import (drag them in) to a new playlist and then I could delete the old playlist - allthough the problem then would be that the old playlist songs would still be in the library, but I think I read where I could do something like option delete (from within the old playlist) to actually remove the files from the library. Then I wouldn't have to hunt for the old songs.
My ignorance is due to my not using the proper terminology. I just saw the suffix is mp3 so I figured people would know what I meant. Same for m4a which probably also has a more correct term than that.
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I thought if I made up a playlist and chose to burn it as MP3 it would just happen. Even after I choose to convert the songs to MP3 I am left with the same message, Only files that are already in MP3 CD format may be burned to an MP3 CD.
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tt2

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gruntvet wrote:
Hey Ed2345;
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Separating Playlists/outside mp3s and Library

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