How do I create a note taking database in Access?

[robgioielli]

I am a graduate student in history and I want to create a datebase for my
notes in Access. One of my professors has one in Filemaker, so I know it can
be done, but I know practically nothing about Access. I essentially want to
have each entry be a separate note (50-500 words) with different fields for
subject, source, archive, date taken, links for scans, etc. Is this possible?

 

[John Nurick]

Hi Rob,

It's quite possible to do this in Access, but first you need to think
hard about just what you want to store and how you want to be able to
search it later.

Access is a relational database management system (RDBMS) designed to
handle rigidly structured data. It doesn't have very good built-in
facilities for handling unstructured or loosely-structured information:
you have to work out a rigid structure that can accommodate whatever
you're going to need to store, and for something as open-ended as most
research projects this can be a real challenge.

Also, Access doesn't have an easy way of indexing text fields with a
capacity of more than 255 characters. So anything but the simplest
searches of free-text notes requires either expert knowledge or a lot of
programming.

I suggest that you first take a look at these:
*Microsoft OneNote: designed for research and very good at capturing
unstructured notes, links, web pages, and all sorts of other stuff.
Search facilities are a bit primitive.
*Idealist (www.bekon.com): hasn't been updated for ages and I'm not
certain the firm is still in business, but very good at storing and
searching loosely-structured data, or data with a mix of different
structures. I've been using Idealist for notes of all kinds for ten or
fifteen years.
*Ask Sam (www.asksam.com)
*InfoSelect (http://www.miclog.com/)