WHY I LOVE DATABASES - AND YOU SHOULD TOO

It’s hard to get people to use databases.  They’re happy with word processing, and warm up quickly to spreadsheets, like Excel.  But the learning curve discourages them from trying databases.

It’s too bad, because a little work to grasp the fundamentals pays off with big dividends.

It’s true that a database operates in a less intutitive way than a spreadsheet, or a table in word processing software.  There’s more to it than meets the eye.  But that’s because it’s capable of so much more.  Once users grasp the fundamentals and realize the potential they become converts.

The main advantages of databases are the almost unlimited amount of data they can store, and the ease with which this data can be manipulated to display only what the user wants to see, and in whatever order she wants to see it.  With spreadsheets the data are right there in all their complexity until the user applies cumbersome commands to filter the information.  In contrast a database can be set up so that when it opens the user sees only what she wants to see.

Take, for example, a common use of a database: recording contact information.  In a spreadsheet, columns can be created for each piece of information: name, street address, city, phone number, reason for contact, date of last contact, etc.  When the program is opened, all this information appears and the user must sort through to find what she needs.  With a database she can go directly to a query or report which will sort the data in whatever way she wants (by last name, city, type of contact, etc.) and display or print only the pieces of information she wants.

A database takes a little longer to set up than a spreadsheet, but that’s a one-time event which pays big dividends.  I recommend a short course on the basics first.  Many communities offer them, and I know of an excellent one that’s offered free, on-line, by a not-for-profit agency:
http://www.gcflearnfree.org/computer/

I ceate a database for anything that I know I’ll want to sort and filter in different ways: an inventory of all the books in the house, my husband’s sports memorabilia, the chapters of the novel I’m writing.  My latest project is a database of the ten nature reserves owned by the land trust I belong to.  In addition to basic information about each reserve like size, legal description, donors and funders, it tracks the inventories of species identified there, including birds, mammals, amphibians, reptiles, plants and butterflies.  To ensure that the data are entered cleanly and consistently, we have pick lists for each category so that names are selected from the list rather than entered freely.

Anyone whose memory is not perfect, and who has a lot of things to remember, should give a database a chance.  I think they’ll be hooked too.