Hey guys, I figure this is a shot in the dark, but there might be some computer-y people out there.
I need to make a database for my dissertation stuff. I have close to 3000 records relating to Civil War monuments that I got from an online database with really terrible coding, that just doesn't do what I need it to do (and also contains every other outdoor monument in the United States, so too much information). I need to be able to input all these records and then search them by any field - date, location, artist/fabricator, content of inscription, etc. I'm relatively computer literate, but I'm more of a humanties person than a computer/math program, so when the acronyms start flying, I get confused very quickly.
I've talked to two people who have some experience with databases, one of whom recommended learning Access, and the other learning SQL. I'm not sure how hard it is to do either of those, but I'd like to make a decision and act on it, possibly by the end of the week, because I've been sitting on this obstacle for too long and I need to do something about it.
Any advice?

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