when using ODBC to query data from an Access database, tables and "queries" (views in every other database system) are equivalent. you have to write queries in SQL either way.

suppose you have a query called "TotalSales". to get the results through ODBC, you would use this SQL:

SELECT *
FROM TotalSales;
[download]

you would do the same with a table called "TotalSales".

i'm not sure how the placeholder stuff in DBI interacts with ODBC, since the underlying datasource is potentially quite exotic (though not in the case of Jet/Access).