As I recall you don't actually need access installed to use *.mdb files. I _think_ I recall someone saying they had used DBD::ODBC to read those files under a unix system. However you may (or may not, try it) need an ODBC driver, but there is supposedly (according to the docs), a ODBC driver included with the DBD::ODBC source. Otherwise there are links to other cross-platform ODBC drivers in those docs.