Welcome to the world of databases! It's a lot of fun and it's always challenging. I would suggest starting off with a popular database, Microsoft Access 97. It's easy to use and very simple on the surface. The best book I've seen on Access 97 is Special Edition Using Microsoft Access by Roger Jennings. It's written in a way that anyone can understand and when you're done with the book, you'll have a very comprehensive knowledge of Access and databases in general. Access' appeal is that you don't have to be a database expert to create tables, queries, forms and reports and they have wizards to help you through it. After that I'd suggest learning Visual Basic 6. You can create databases and distribute them in Visual Basic. Then I'd suggest learning either SQL Server or Oracle.
