Question About Data Model

I'm trying to find an appropriate general method for modelling the following relationship:

There is a Publication table with publication details. For each publication, there are certain groups of terms that can be assigned to it.
The main two are: Which Country it relates to; and which Areas (keywords) it deals with.

The first idea was just to implement the following:

Pub Table -(1-many)- Pub_Country Table -(many-1)- Country Table

---------             -----------------            -------------
Pub_ID                Pub_ID Country_ID            Country_ID

And do something similar for Keywords.

The thing is that I feel that this is not a particularly intelligent solution: adding further 'Groups' in the future involves creating entirely new conceptual relationships.

I was thinking along the lines of a SuperGroups Table that categorised each Group.

But my design then looked like this:

Pub Table -(1-many)- Pub_Group Table -(many-1)- Country(Element) Table

---------             -----------------          -------------
Pub_ID                Pub_ID Group_ID Element_ID   Element _ID

Group Table

Which doesn't make things any better - in fact it is more complicated and makes less sense.
I am feelign a little confused and would appreciate any ideas: does it make sense what I am trying to do? And is it worth the effort? i get this feeling that I am on the right lines, but perhaps missing the wood for the trees.

TIA,
Lorenzo. Received on Fri Jul 12 2002 - 12:56:58 CEST