[WEB4LIB] Journal title database

[Kevil, L H.]

Hi Stacy,

My advice is to learn Access. You can get going pretty quickly and without
having to get into much heavy-duty stuff.

It is very easy to export data from Excel to Access and then back to Excel.
You will quickly learn which program you should use to minimize aggravation.
The Access database splitter is very good for converting flat files from
Excel into Access tables.

Good luck,

Hunter

L. Hunter Kevil,
Collection Development Librarian,
176 Ellis Library,
University of Missouri-Columbia,
Columbia, MO 65201
Voice:  573-884-8760
Fax:    573-882-6034
E-mail: KevilL at missouri.edu

-----Original Message-----
From: Stacy Pober [mailto:spober at manhattan.edu]
Sent: Wednesday, April 05, 2000 4:53 PM
To: Multiple recipients of list
Subject: [WEB4LIB] Journal title database 


I have Excel spreadsheets of the online and print journal titles we get
at our library.  I may create a combined online/print journal list as
well, and that's not a problem per se.  But I'd like to get some
statistical data out of these lists.  For example, I would like to get a
count of unique titles within the online database journal list (a lot of
titles are covered by multiple vendors).  And I'd like to see how many
of the print journals are covered in our online databases.  

Can either of these questions be answered by doing some manipulation of
the data in Excel?  Do I have to put this data into something more
complex, such as a database program like Access?  I have avoided
learning to use Access up to now, and was hoping to continue with that
luck, but if it's the only way, I might as well know now.  <sigh>

Any other suggestions on how to get the statistics I'm looking for from
the data I have?  There's over 10,000 titles in the online title list,
so I don't think sorting them manually is going to be practical...

-- 
Stacy Pober, Information Alchemist
Manhattan College Libraries
spober at manhattan.edu
http://www.manhattan.edu/library/