Electronic db for Personal Library

[prost]

I have thousands of papers in my personal professional library. I have a set of index cards that list titles, authors, source (journal), and have the papers in a filing cabinet. I quite often have trouble finding a particular paper in the library if I can't remember any of the authors' names. What does everyone else do? Is there a simple, cheap, effective electronic catalog system I could set up to get more organized in this area, help me spend much less time finding papers I know I have but can't remember exactly where I put them? I thought of Microsoft Access, looked it over, it didn't really look like it would fit my needs. Any other ideas?

 

[MikeHalloran]

Access is overkill for this.

Transcribe your cards' contents into Excel, one card per row.

Scanners and OCR may have improved since I last gave up on them.







Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA

 

[prost]

Access may seem like overkill, but Excel seems like not enough. If you wanted to look up all your papers with references to say 'corrosion fatigue in 7178' you'd have to do several searches and weed through your results by hand/eye.

 

[MintJulep]

I agree that Access has more muscle than needed, but if you already have Access this would be very simple to do.

Mike's suggestion to use Excel will work, or you could do the same in a word document.

If you want to electrify your entire library, here is a cool trick.

Scan your papers into PDF. Using any text processor, create a simple page with the same contents as your index cards, and a summary of the paper if you care to do so. Generate (not scan) that to a PDF, and add that page to the scanned paper.

Use Google desktop. It can index the generated PDF page so that you can search for whatever you want.

 

[handleman]

I wrote a library program several years ago for my parents' extensive book collection. It's an executable file that uses a formatted text file as the data file. I'd be glad to send it to you if you'd like to give it a try. Just let me know, because I'll have to get them to send it to me. I no longer have the source code or the VB2 (yes, 2) compiler I used to write it.

 

[prost]

I am not as familiar with VB as you; I just write macros in VB for Excel, that's about the extent of it, so forgive my ignorance. Don't know what VB2 is, or about VB2's compiler. Is this an executable that needs no formal Windows installation; all I have to do is double click on it to get it started?

If so, I'll give it a try, if you don't mind getting it to me. You can send it to drfea@yahoo.com

Thanks.

 

[handleman]

Yes, it's a normal executable. VB2 is Visual Basic 2.0. In other words, very old. I believe it was released in '90 or '92. The program shouldn't need any installation. I'll see if I can send it to you.

 

[handleman]

OK, here's a link to download it. Just unzip the file somewhere on your PC and check the "Read Me First.txt" file for usage. Or just unzip and poke around. The worst that can happen is that you have a junk text file added to the unzipped directory called "BOOKS.LIB".

http://quick.dropfiles.net/453139

Enjoy!

 

[ScottyUK]

Anyone who is recommending using a spreadsheet for what is patently a simple database application has not had the dubious pleasure of trying to rebuild the data after inadvertently performing a sort on only one column in Excel. Once you have made this error once or twice on a big data set, you won't use spreadsheets as databases.

Access is very simple if all you want to do is enter data into an Excel-like table structure. After that you can tart it up with nice forms for data entry, error-checking and rule validation, subtables, VB event procedures and so on until you have a fairly complex database. It is possible to get some very professional looking results, and it isn't too difficult to learn if you aren't under time pressure.


----------------------------------

Sometimes I only open my mouth to swap feet...

 

[electricpete]

I would say it is a matter of preference.

I have used excel for databases for 8 years. At first I made the error Scotty mentioned once or twice. Then I learned a few groundrules: Use one sheet per table, records in rows and fields in columns, field headings always the first row. To sort, always select all by pressing block in upper left corner of the spreadsheet and check the radio button "data has heading row".

With those groundrules I have never had any problems since those early mistakes.

Also with the autofilter feature, you may not have to do much sorting - use the pulldown on any field to view that field in sorted order and find the records of interest.

Finally, if the data is absolutely critical, you might consider backups anyway.

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[xerf]

There is a plug-in software for MS Word, which is called
Endnote. It is used to organize and insert references in the Word documents. I have been using it for writing papers and I found it very useful.

You can obtain a trial version on their website. (endnote.com)

You can find a tutorial here:

http://healthlinks.washington.edu/howto/endnote/tutorial/index.html

I suppose there might be similar but free software somewhere out there on the internet.

 

[TVP]

prost,

This will not help with your paper documents, but for electronic documents have you considered Google Desktop? It is not really a catalog, but it certainly helps me find electronic documents to which I have "lost" (forgotten the location, typo in the file name, etc.). I am still trying to determine the best option for my paper documents, so this is definitely an interesting thread.

 

[unclesyd]

Here is one solution, an "unstructured database" MemoryMate. I still use the DOS version that I hope to import one day.

http://usd.swreg.org/soft_shop/18/shopscr35.shtml

 

[Ashereng]

I scan my notes and stuff into PDF files, and give each file a descriptive enough name that I can search for it later.

I try to group them into folders in my hard disk when I initially file them away.

Then, when I need to find something, I use windows explorer to search my hard disk.

It usually works well enough for me.

"Do not worry about your problems with mathematics, I assure you mine are far greater."
Albert Einstein
Have you read FAQ731-376 to make the best use of Eng-Tips Forums?

 

[prost]

thank you all for your continuing replies. I had looked around for a while, didn't come up with anything as most of these suggestions.