My Initial Database Concept

Ever since High School I’ve had a hard time keeping track of what books I have in my collection already. Now that I’m married, it’s even harder to remember which books my husband and I own and where they are. Some are in Fairbanks with us, but more are stored with our parents. Thus, I’ve decided that I’d like to begin a library catalogue of sorts. Also since I’m starting my graduate degree next year in library sciences, this should help me learn about some of the challenges of library databases.

For the scope of this class I’ll only be able to add the books that I actually have here with me, but this summer we’re moving down to the lower forty-eight so we’ll have to go through everything anyway so I could add the rest in as we go. I may even turn it into a media database in general with CDs and movies as well. I’ll have to see as I get going since it could take a while to enter that much data.

I’d like to make this database as user friendly (or more) as a public library system. Forms will be a big part of the construction of the database. I’ll need forms for inputting data into tables, and if there’s some way to make a form that will search for specific fields such as title, author, ISBN, or genre, that would also be great. Also I like the idea of having a “home” form pop up right when the database is started, like in the Northwind Traders example. This could even have links to genres, favorite authors or series.

I’m trying to figure out how queries would be useful right at first, and I’m sure I’ll think of something. I know that reports from queries could come in very useful when I want to go shopping for new books in a series and I want to quickly know which ones I have so I don’t buy repeats. Perhaps I’ll even have a special table just for books I want to get in the future with costs and printing dates.

I did some research to see how difficult it would be to use the Dewey Decimal system to categorize my books, but if I really wanted to be thorough I’d have to buy a few code generators to stay updated. I think that for a home library, information you’d look up at a book store will be sufficient.

My ultimate goal is to have some way of managing all the books my husband and I own so we can easily and quickly see what they are and where they’re stored. As I’ve mentioned before this project could readily be expanded to include other forms of media if I find it necessary in the future. I think this project could be fun, useful, and also help better prepare me for my chosen career path.