Access will automatically number your species:
 
We use Family, Genus, Species, Sub-species, Author & Date, Locality, Date
collected or acquired, Collector, Size, Grade and Est. Value.
 
If you go into query - it will automatically total the value.
 
I just kinda learned as I went....haven't tried putting the photos in
yet.....maybe at a future time.
 
We have over 7,000 species to catalog and have only 1/3 of them done in over
a year.
We are taking each shell one a time in order to size, grade and put a value
on them.
It is a big job!  But I'm sure will be worth it when done.
 
I then ran hard copies to put in a 3 ring binder to take with us.  Only have
to rerun single pages occasionally as we add or subtract species.
 
We sorted ours by species in alphabetical order...since we are doing each
family separately.    You can sort any way you want.
 
Peter Egerton wrote:
 
> Hi,
> I'm planning on using Access for my shell database as well.
> Could you give me few pointers to get started. What tables, fields,
> forms, etc have you made?
> So far I'm thinking of one table for recording the shell lots
> (catalog number, species, location, number of specimens,
> quality, habitat, etc) and one for taxonomic information (such as
> genus, species, families and authors, etc). I guess the two would
> be connected by primary/foreign keys? (I'm new at this.)
> Any other suggestions would be very greatly appreciated! Thanks.
> Peter Egerton, Vancouver, Canada
>
> You wrote:
> >I use Access 97 by Microsoft and find it to be an easy to use database.
> >I know it will also print up labels but I have never set it up for that
> >and still have to do my own labels.  I believe the Sanibel (Bailey
> >Matthews) Museum also uses this database and they have it set up for
> >labels.  I have been working with it for almost a year and there are
> >still a few little glitches I haven't resolved.  But the work goes on.
> >
> >Tom Eichhorst in New Mexico, USA
> >
> >
> Peter Egerton, Vancouver, Canada
> Collector of worldwide Mollusca
 
--
Jim and Bobbi Cordy
of Merritt Island, Florida.
 
Jim Specializes in Self-Collected
Caribbean & Florida Shells
 
Bobbi in Shell Creations