1. The Database Application
Storing the data that business collects

2. What is a database? It’s a collection of information.
Customer details for a business
Patient records at the doctors
Member details at the leisure centre
Product details for a business
CD’s, videos & books at the library
The list is endless ………………………..

3. How is data stored? On paper, for example: a telephone directory
a card index
On a computer
the database application

4. I know that ‘phone number’s here somewhere!!!
Databases on paper
I know that ‘phone number’s here somewhere!!!
These are hard work
Vast amounts of paper needed
Only one person at a time can use each document
Searching for something takes a long time
Documents can get lost
Gathering information from different documents takes a long time

5. Databases on a computer
Life gets a bit easier (advantages)
Large amounts of data is stored in a small space
More than one user can see the data at any one time
A computer can search the database quickly for specific information
The stored data is less likely to be lost

6. Databases on a computer
There’s always a downside (disadvantages)
The computer equipment you need will be relatively expensive to buy and install
Initial cost of collecting the data and setting up the database will be high
To make the system effective staff need to be trained
If the system fails you cannot access the information

7. Structure of a database
All databases have the same structure
They contain records. Each record holds all the data about one person (or one product, or one thing).
E.g. the Argos catalogue contains hundreds of records. One of them contains details about a television.
Each record is divided into fields. Each field holds one item of data about the person, product or thing.
E.g. the record for the television has fields for ‘Make’, ‘Model’, ‘Price’, ‘Cat No’, ‘Description’.

8. Structure of a database
This is a database of members at a leisure centre
Can you identify one record from this database?
How many fields can you see in this database?
Does each record contain the same fields?
One item of data should be unique to each record.
This is called the key field.
Which field here is the key field?