Home filing system/catalog (XP)

[Caesar3]

Has anyone had experience building a small office/home office filing system? I'm reasonably fluent with Access--I use it regularly at work, and I've done a little amateur development. What I'm looking for is suggestions for building a functional filing and cataloging system, complete with serial numbers for, say, my DVD/VHS collection, my books, large and small appliances, paper records (will, deed, motor vehicle registrations)....

In my mind, I have this hazy vision of using those tiny return-address labels (Avery 8167) to print out sequentially-numbered labels for just about everything. I'd use regular file folder labels for...well, file folders. The serial numbers would reside in the various tables in my DB, and reports would show where I've stashed all my stuff. I'm just not sure where to start and how to pull it all together. Any suggestions?

[carbonnb]

Lucas,

I did something along these lines for the department I work for. It tracked things like books, Audio tapes, video cassettes, Lesson Plans, student Handouts, Powerpoint presentations, acetate overhead (I work for a training department), equipment.....

Each of the "things" had it's own tables with it's own numbering system.

If I can get the db down to a reasonable size (no data), I will post it here tomorrow so you can see what it looks like.

It was created in my early days of development, so there are a bunch of things that I would change, but it may give you a start.

[Caesar3]

Hello, Bryan, and thanks for the offer! I'll look forward to seeing your sample!

[carbonnb]

Lucas,

Here it is. I had to strip out a bunch of the functionality to get it down small enough to post here, but it has the main forms, the queries for the main forms, and the tables.

I had to take out the reports and all the code, but hopefully it should give you enough to work with.

If not, just ask and I'll see what I can remember. It's been about 4 years since I've worked with the internals of this DB.

[Caesar3]

Wow, Bryan! This is great! I may have a question or two later, but this a terrific framework. Thank you very much!