Author

1
ER
Diagram
(please see slide 2 for more info)
Book Book ID (specific to this database) Title ISB
N Library of Congress Dewey Decimal
Publication Date Genre (when applicable) Reading
Level (when applicable) Page Count Language Publi
cation Date
writes ?
is illustrated by ?
Illustrator Illustrator ID (specific to this
database) Last Name First Name Middle
Name Website URL (when applicable)
Author Author ID (specific to this database) Last
Name First Name Middle Name Website URL (when
applicable)
Illustrators Books
Authors Books
? is written by
? creates/draws pictures for
is published by
Publisher Publisher ID (specific to this
database) Company Name Variant Name Imprint Name
(when applicable) Ordering Address Editorial
Mailing Address Phone Fax Website URL ISBN
prefix
Distributor Distributor ID (specific to this
database) Company Name Postal Address Phone Fax
Website URL
hires to help showcase/sell merchandise ?
Distributor/Publisher
?helps to showcase/sell books
2

• More Information about this ER Diagram
• I created this ER diagram, hoping to show some
  key relationships within the book industry.
• The relationships devised were based primarily
  on my prior knowledge. I did consult Books in
  Print and WorldCat in order to try to find out a
  bit more about publishers and distributors. I
  recognize that this exercise might have benefited
  from my consulting The Bowker Annual Library and
  Book Trade Almanac or a similar reference book
  that focuses upon the business of books.
• While planning this diagram, I considered
  including Primary Subject Heading as an
  attribute of the Book entity but decided that
  it often would be difficult to spotlight one
  heading and exclude others. Perhaps one could
  include Subject Headings as an attribute of
  Book within a database, making sure that the
  field size for such is big enough to accommodate
  quite a bit of text. Similarly, I did consider
  Main Products as an attribute of the
  Publisher entity but decided against including
  this, as such might prove to be bulky in an
  Access database. Again, I recognize that one can
  define the field size of a text data type in
  Access, but I remained hesitant, envisioning
  lengthy entries within a Main Products field,
  and therefore I decided to not include such as an
  attribute. The above also applies to my
  consideration of including Specialty or
  Specialties as an attribute of the
  Distributor entity.
• I see my diagram as a variation on Chris
  Higgins diagram ( featuring record albums and
  artists), which we studied in class. Professor
  Buch noted that compilations or duets albums help
  to expose a many-to-many relationship between
  artists and albums. I believe that this applies
  to the book industry with the occurrence of dual
  authors, and in some rare instances with more
  than one illustrator per individual book/title.
  I tried to represent this complexity with
  double-arrow connectors. I was tempted to see a
  somewhat similar many-to-many relationship
  between the Book entity and the Publisher
  entity, but I currently lean toward seeing
  Publisher as the parent, to which the child
  that is the entity Book points. I also
  considered including a direct relationship
  between Book and Distributor, but decided
  that this would cut out the key liaison that is
  the Publisher.