First off, you do NOT want to fill up a "comments" or "other" field with all sorts of info. (1) You can't sort by any of that info. (2) You often can't retrieve by any of that info. (3) It's difficult to find a particular item when it's mixed in with all sorts of other things, in that record or overall. As much as possible, have separate fields for each tidbit of info. That just means you have to tab-key to the next field more often, which isn't significantly more work during data entry. You get into a pattern during entry, unlike calling up records and changing things in them.
There are two ways to separate the info. For many things, you have a category-field and you type in the info. For example, you can have the "gen-cat" [general category of lace] field, and type in "BL" or "NL" or "tat", etc.). I used "gen cat" for BL etc, and then used "style" for the cultural origin of the lace (pt ground, torchon, modern, etc.). The second method is to have a series of check-mark fields. I've used this for things like the matter of the book. The fields would be technique, patterns, history, gallery (or eye-candy or inspiration), reference, etc., and you put an "X" into whichever field(s) is/are true. Lohr's _Tips and Tricks_ would have a check only in "technique", while Nottingham's _Intro to Bobbin Lace_ would have checks in "technique" and "patterns", and maybe in "history" and Paternoster's _Threads_ would have a check only in "reference". A field gets either a single character (x) or nothing, so it's not a lot of typing. The reason for doing it this way, instead of a "subject" field where you type in "patterns" and/or "history", etc., is for retrieval. It's easier to retrieve all books with an x in "patterns" field than all books with patterns-with-or-without-other-words-before-and/or-after-it in the "category" field. For embroidery (but could be useful in lace) books, I also included a "theme" field, for things like traditional vs. Christmas vs. floral vs. insects, etc. It can be blank if there's no particular theme to the designs. Or you can have a field for pattern size, where you type in "yardage" or "motifs" or "bookmarks", etc., although these also lend themselves to another set of check-mark fields since some books have more than one size. Another thing to consider: You want separate categories for the kinds of BL, but do you have separate categories within tatting or within NL? If not, have a single "category" field into which you type "NL" or "tat" or "lacis" or the particular style of BL. This won't easily allow you to retrieve all BL books with no non-BL books, but do you see yourself doing that? Just a question for you to decide. Robin P. Los Angeles, California, USA (formerly Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania) [EMAIL PROTECTED] ----- Original Message ----- From: Tamara P Duvall <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > What do I name a field which tells me whether it's Bobbin, Needle, > Tatted (Shuttle), etc lace? I suppose I could create two > catalogues -- > one for BL, where I have the most of books, and one for the > "other". > But I would prefer to have a single catalogue for all lacwes. > > What do I name a field which tells me that, within BL, it's Point > Ground, or Flanders, or Freehand? Is that "technique"? And what > about a > field name which distinguishes a manual from a history book, from > a > collection of patterns, from a collection of photograps? > > To be sure, all of that info can be fed into the "comments" or > "notes" > field, but then I won't be able to search/sort by those, should I > want > to make a short list of, say, all the BL, photos of Point Ground > laces. > Any and all suggestions welcome. - To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
