I read a comment pointing out that the book is too 'simplistic', and so it is. But, for the serious user of Access, there are other books which treat the subject in much greater depth. I certainly use Access regularly, for keeping track of a (large) collection of DVD titles - this is a flat database that could have been held in Excel, I suppose - the others apply to my (perhaps larger) music collection, this being a relational database. I find the 'Step by Step' books to be easy to follow, and useful up to a point. You have to bear in mind that the books are written to cater for those who just need to learn about something, but not in any depth. In this regard, they succeed very well.