Hi twriter101,
It appears (even though you don't say it expressly) that you want to use
this database to be able to locate which issue(s) discusses a particular
subject.
Seems like you have got a little bit of an idea of the different topics your
db will include. However, I suggest that your approach be a little different
on your second pass. For exapmple:
One publisher can have many magazine titles
One magazine title can have many issues
One issue can have many articles
One article can have (discuss) many subjects
One subject can be in many articles
(publisher is overkill for your needs, but it helps with the example)
So now, armed with the above information, you sketch out the table structure
and relationships on a piece of paper. One table for publishers
(tblPublisher), one for magazine titles(tblMagTitle), one for issues of the
mag (tblMagIssue), one for articles (tblArticle), one for subjects
(tblSubject) and one for article subjects (tblArticleSubject).
With the above tables, you could query for "picking" and get a list of which
magazine issues had articles that discussed "picking".
But the problem comes in when you try to fit a searchable sub-subjects to
the subject. Such as: trancription is the subject, band or song are the
sub-subjects that might require its own table. One band might have many song
transcriptions, and one song might have many band transcriptions. Or take
'picking' - you might want to search for all articles on picking or you might
want to narrow it down to 'finger' picking or 'flat' picking. How would you
have to structure the tables to do that?
Because only you know how you want to use this db, you're going to have to
do the 'mapping out' (design and normalizing) of the tables.
You might try looking at Microsoft's Office online and follow links for
templates, home and community, hobbies and collections. They have a book
collection template that you might study. Your need is more involved than
what that db offers, but I'm sure it can be of some benefit for you to study
while you build yours.
