Introduction: Database Use

You can use databases for a variety of reasons. Businesses use them to record of everything from items for sale to customers names and contact information. Similarly hospitals, pharmacies, or doctors of all sorts can use databases to keep track of patient records and what supplies they have in stock and which they need to reorder. Libraries use databases to store information concerning book titles, patrons, and other forms of media they may use. With these, librarians can also monitor how popular a book or particular author is, which helps in knowing which new books to buy or how many copies they should keep on hand. Our university uses a variety of databases as well to record important student information such as registration, financial aid, and even on-campus jobs that are available. I would personally use an Access database for managing my friends and family or for keeping track of the huge number of books my husband and I own.
The difference between Excel and Access is that the data in Excel is more one dimensional and is more useful for small amounts of data that is mostly made up of numbers. Access has tables like Excel, but in addition Access has forms, queries, and reports which help store, manage, and retrieve multi-dimensional information better than a simple table. A database is larger in scope than the tables of Excel.