On to the next project...

We have a need to create a "book" of sorts.

Each page will be similar to a one-page data sheet:

Several paragraphs of text and a few images. The layout would be standard for all the sheets. Each sheet would be a unique part number...
There would be several "families" of these parts.

The problem I see is managing the access to the sheets by the visitor; i.e., one 'family' would have 600+ sheets...another perhaps 350.

We could use something like SmartSection to create individual article pages...but we wouldn't want to throw up a list of 600 articles...rather a search by part number to display the correct sheet.

Any thoughts on a neat and clean way to implement this "parts book" project?

There is no buying or selling here...it is just a reference book.

Maybe a commerce module for the catalog, but taking out all the 'commerce' pieces may be a task.

Just a suggestion:

Use something like smartSection or even perhaps TinyContent. Each 'family' is a category. Create an additional page or block for the module that allows entry of the part number and either write a specific search routine or modify the module's own search interface to retrieve ids for the part number required. Create or modify the existing result templates to display the information in the way that you want. If you run the extGal photo gallery module and apply the hack for it, you can include pictures into your text quite simply thereby avoidng the requirement to modify the article module to hold pictures.

With a bit of thought, I'm sure you can acheive what you want by tweaking what already exists.

Another thought is a wiki module. Wiki's generate good menu system based on hierarchical structures that you can expand/collapse.

This menu can be shown in a block giving a nice page navigation structure.

There are a few wiki modules about, so you would have to try them to see which is most suitable.

If you want to see each of these options demonstrated... you can visit my site: http://processteam.org