I work for a museum which has 5 separate FMP databases (relationally linked), one for each geographical area the musuem covers. Each db has identical fields and also stores a photo of the artifact in question (detailed in the record). The separate dbs can be searched 'universally' .... one keyword finds every record where that keyword occurs, no matter what field. The search routine (separate screens) that search across all 5 dbs are specific/exact only ... i.e an exact match in one selected field. I need to have the same 'universal' search capability we enjoy on each separate one across all the related databases.

I'm sure this question has been asked many times, but (hey) I'm just an intermediate who's lost.

Thanks anyone who can provide the answer.

Great site, by the way, learnt a huge amount already, just by reading postings!

Chris

NEFDA

Best solution: get rid of four of the databases and store all the information in one file, with a new field to differentiate between regions.

This will make updating the system easier in the future: as it is, any enhancements you make to one database has to be done four more times to the other files as well.

Thanks Vaughan

I had thought of this but was worried about search times in such a large database, although I must admit search times at the moment are pretty fast in an individual database, despite have 10,000 records. However, combining the 5 databases into one would increase the record number to around 40,000. Would this have a really negative effect on search speeds in your expert opinion?

Chris

Doesn't take an expert to know that searching 40,000 records takes longer than searching 10,000 records. But since you want to search all 40,000 records anyway...

Don't worry -- if you can't notice how long it takes to search 10,000 records, you'll hardly notice the difference when searching 'em all.