The Integrated USMS Competition Database
I believe there should be a "USMS Competition Database" of all national championship meets and Top Ten since 1993, perhaps limited, at least at first, to individual events. This database should be routinely maintained and should be available on the same compact disk that I will routinely publish with all the digital files of USMS archives. All the files I am preparing will be static files in html format. The "USMS Competition" database will, of course, be fully searchable and a continuing resource to answer questions of the sort that the Championship Committee asks as well as for many other purposes.
I believe this database has an important future, and I'm hoping it will be done in Access because I'll build and promote lots of uses for it. I don't know much about either dbase or Access, and if I've got a lot to learn, I'd prefer to learn about Access.
If the only way to get it done is in dBase, then let's do dBase.
I pick 1993 as the starting point because I have all the Top Ten data starting then plus national championship meets for 93,94,95. All is in a consistent format. Top Ten all has the SwimmerID assigned which means we have a primary field to choose people. The SwimmerID enables us to handle name changes, misspellings, and the little variations that get introduced into many peoples names by happenstance from year to year. I will assign the SwimmerID to the national championship meet results when we're ready to get going.
We don't have a good way to maintain the SwimmerID at this time, so the maintenance of the SwimmerID could be part of this project.
(from Carl House, October 3, 2000)
Top Ten
