Microsoft Access '97 – 2003 | Page One | Beginners

Wanting to learn about Microsoft Access? The following pages include an introduction for beginners, design process, questions and answers, a glossary.

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What is a database?

A source of information based on tables of data, each table (Entity) containing many records, each record consisting of a number of fields (Attributes).

A collection of records within a table or tables; a Management Information System; a system that allows access to, and enables the management of, information.

The definition of information?

Any number of data items collectively making up a record in a table.

A data item might be, for example, a name (within a field). However, a name in itself doesn't tell us much; we need therefore to append some data to make a complete record. For example: a street name field; a town or city field; a post code field; a telephone number or email address field perhaps, collectively making a single record. You might include additional fields in your table design, and add any number of records to your table; perhaps a number of tables to your database.

Naturally, you may want to search for and print specific data. For example, you might include 'Surname' as a field within a table, making it possible to query (Search) for an individual. You might also include 'Age' as a field within the table, enabling you to specify a particular age range. You will then be able to filter records specific to your criteria (Like "Smith" (Criteria Expression)); albeit you can also search for an empty field, or empty fields (Is Null), which would allow you to filter out records where information (Age for example) is incomplete.

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