Suggestions on ways to implement stored lists of ID numbers

[Fred Boer]

Hello! I'm looking for design suggestions for a new feature I want to add to
my School Library application.



The feature allows the user to create a "Book List" report. The process is
as follows:



The librarian goes to the shelves and fills the library cart with a small
collection of books on some topic. Then, using a form, each BookID is
entered into a temporary table. The form contains a command button to print
a report listing the information (Title, Dewey, Format, etc.).



I have created this process and it appears to work properly. However.



I am wondering if this is the best way to accomplish this. Another option
might be to generate a SQL statement and use that as the basis for the
report. I've not done this because if the number of books becomes large I
worry that this might become awkward.



I particularly am interested in some method to "save" book lists. For
example, if I create a book list for a particular topic, I might want to
save it for future use. With the process I have now, I suppose I could
rename and save the table. This might conceivably lead to a large number of
tables. Any suggestions? Am I approaching this in a reasonable manner? Do
you have any better way that I could save the lists of BookID numbers?



Thanks!

Fred Boer

 

[John Welch]

You could have just one table that stores Id numbers of 'book lists' and
that table could have another field called ListName. Then somewhere you
could chose a listname from a combobox (its rowsource being select distinct
listname from tblBookLists) and print up a report of all books with that
listname. Or, to really do it right, you could have two tables, a Listname
lookup table that just stored the List names with a listnameID and your
Booklist table which would then have the two fields bookID and ListnameID.
hope this helps
-John

 

[Fred Boer]

Dear John:

Thanks for the suggestions!

Fred

You could have just one table that stores Id numbers of 'book lists' and
that table could have another field called ListName. Then somewhere you
could chose a listname from a combobox (its rowsource being select distinct
listname from tblBookLists) and print up a report of all books with that
listname. Or, to really do it right, you could have two tables, a Listname
lookup table that just stored the List names with a listnameID and your
Booklist table which would then have the two fields bookID and ListnameID.
hope this helps
-John