Hi John Baird, A very simple solution to the database quandry would be to use one of the many *shareware* databases programs. I personally use file express, but as I said this is only one of many. Most shareware is intended to be *user* friend. In this particular cases File Express is one hundred percent menu driven. At 01:02 AM 5/4/98 -0500, you wrote: >Dear List, > >A short recap...then more background on the Frank Emerson Index. > >The Frank Emerson Index that I will be demonstrating at the Cybercafe in >Providence is a - huge - resource! This a periodical index of 13,675 >articles of interest to piano technicians from 31 journals. All but >about 300 of those are from either our former journal, The Piano >Technician (May 1946 to Dec 1957), or our current journal, Piano >Technicians Journal (Jan 1958 to the current issue). This index is the >result of many years of effort by Frank Emerson, RPT. He has graciously >turned his index over to PTG. > >The ECC's plan is to include this index on the CD-ROM of 15 years of >Journal articles (with the passage of time maybe that’s grown to 16 >years now<g>). It could also be distributed on diskette. In zipped form >the database file is .5MB in size. This then unzips into a 4.5MB file. >Frank's wish is that his index will be helpful to the committee and to >the rest of PTG, and his one request is that it be available only to the >membership. It's a .dbf file that can be imported to all kinds of >programs like MS Access, File Maker Pro, etc. Question: How many in the >general membership know how to use a database? Maybe Bill Ballard is >right that most people would be happy enough doing text searches with a >word processor. > >Since Frank Emerson discontinued maintaining the database in May 1995, I >have been working with it, doing such things as deleting duplicate >records, merging the small index that the Home Office maintains for its >purposes, modifying the structure, updating, etc. > >The Home Office index has recently started omitting such Journal >features as Steve Brady's book reviews and comments in Editorial >Perspective, the President's Message, and death notices in Passages. >Frank was diligent about including all this stuff. Having this material >may not be of much interest to those looking only for technical >information, but it does make other kinds of research possible. These >recent omissions may not matter as much when we have the complete 16 >years of Journals on a searchable CD. On the other hand, I don't know >yet if the search and report functions of the PDF file on a CD-ROM are >as flexible as what you can do with a database file. > >Each record in the database has eight fields that can be searched: >KEYWORDS, AUTHOR, TITLE, PUBLICATION, MONTH, PAGE, SERIES, AND CATEGORY. >The KEYWORDS field is especially useful. If you were searching for >information on "touchweight", for instance, you may miss some articles >by searching only on the TITLE field, since the term "touchweight" does >not necessarily appear in the title of all the articles which deal with >that subject. However, a search on the KEYWORDS field will result in >more "finds". > >John Baird, Member >PTG Electronic Communications Committee > > Regards, Don
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