merging files

[Rob Bier]

For reasons not worth going into, the community radio station where I volunteer has at least 38 copies of its CD database.  Many of the records in each copy duplicate those in other copies; some records exist only in a single copy.  All new records now are being entered into the same database.  Obviously, it would be preferable to have all records (more than 30,000 of them) in the same place.  How do we do this?  Can the existing files be merged so that only unique records remain in the merged file, so that duplicates are eliminated?  Are there other ways to clean up what years of sloppy habits have caused?

I have reviewed the Panorama Handbook without finding any clues.  Panorama Help was not loaded when the program was installed.  The person who set up the system  has departed this life.