About a year ago I entered the tables of contents from all my gun magazines (about 150) into a database file on my laptop. I also entered in the subjects covered by the article. For example, an article titled "The Model 10: America's favorite revolver" would have these additional flags: S&W, handguns, revolvers, M10, .38, collecting. So, if I was in search mode and entered any title word or any of those flags that article would come up in the results. I could also search by author, date, magazine name, and page number.
Needless to say, this took a loooooong time to complete.
But, it sure is handy when I think "hey, wasn't there an article about the 1911A1 in either GunWorld or Guns back in 1995?
Whammo! Instead of digging through several boxes I just type in "1911, Gun (in magazine area) and 1995.
Bingo, up comes a couple results to pick from. If I just entered 1911 I would get dozens of results. If I entered .45 I would get even more.
My wife thinks I'm nuts, and she's probably right. But hey, it's my free time I'm wasting, so who cares?
-Kframe
