Advice Creating a Discussion Group Papers Data Base

[Fkemp]

Discussion Paper Database
I have approximately 400 papers that have been presented at a discussion group over the last 40 some years.
I am creating an Access 2016 database to store and provide a way of searching for the various papers.
I am a reasonably proficient amateur programmer progressing from Fortran, to Basic, Pascal, VB, and Python.
I have a copy of Wiley’s, Access 2016 Bible.
I propose to create 3 Tables;

1. TblTalks

Fields

1. Number
2. TalkTitle
3. Presenter
4. TalkDate
5. Responder
6. Category
7. Location ---I wonder if this should be in a separate table?

1. TblNames

Fields

1. Number
2. Names

1. TblCatigory

Fields

1. Number
2. Category

There are 400 plus titles/papers ad there will be monthly additions. The papers “PDF format file” will be saved in the TblTalks, Location Field.
There are presently 75 “Presenter/Responder” names. There will be additions to this field
There are presently 12 Categories. There will be additions to this field.
The object of the database is to be able to search by Presenter or by Category, display a list of the paper titles, Presenter, Date, Responder, and Category; that fit the search. And then be able to select a specific paper from its file location and open the PDF file of the paper so that the file can be read and or printed out.
I have not thought out this part of the database design but with my experience in programming VBA I thought that it could be accomplished when I get to that point.
I appreciate any suggestions, directions, help and critiques that will assist me in creating this database.
Fred Lasswell, PE
lecofr@bellsouth.net

[Micron]

Advise against using reserved words for any object name (such as Names, Name, Number...). See http://allenbrowne.com/AppIssueBadWord.html
Also advise against storing files in an Access db

The papers “PDF format file” will be saved in the TblTalks, Location Field.

Only store the file path in a table and use code to open said file.
Don't combine first and last names (tblNames)
Consider whether or not there can be 2 or more presenters/locations/whatever associated with the entity (talk). If so, then yes, separate them if it doesn't cause any grief (normalize until it hurts, they say). Another reason to separate would be to create a lookup table (no, not a lookup field in a table) so as to somewhat control what can be entered for key attributes. You present a combo list and make the user select from that so you don't end up with Emery vs Emory.
Pretty sure there are library type schemas here http://www.databaseanswers.org/data_models/ if you want to compare.

[June7]

Put name parts in separate fields: LName, FName, MName, CourtesyTitle, Suffix