On Aug 19, 2008, at 8:09 PM, David W. Fenton wrote:
But a flat file approach is guaranteed to produce far more problems
in the long run than are possible with a relational structure, unless
that, too, has been improperly designed.
David,
You seem to have a lot of experience here. Assuming I'm running a
school music performance materials library of 500-700 pieces or so.
How would you suggest setting up the fields in a database (like
Filemaker) for instrumentation? Most of the rest is clear to me (your
points about composers and bios make a lot of sense.)
Would you say something like one field for instrumentation, and then
fill that field with the actual instruments? Or with the name of the
ensemble if it is a standard one? Or would you have a Piccolo field,
with yes or no or a number of parts, then on to the Flute 1, etc.?
Or am I still thinking flat file? (our library is presently an Excel
spreadsheet, and I tend to think that way!)
Our library contains concert band, jazz band, combo, and chamber
music in various combinations. Obviously for it to be more useful
than the present spreadsheet, it would have to be browseable by
instrumentation. How would that work with slightly differing
instrumentations (like a lot of concert band pieces?)
Thanks for your input.
Christopher
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