The biggest issue with any multi-user Access setup is setting up sharing.
"Sharing" subdivides into "WINDOWS sharing" and "ACCESS sharing."
To resolve WINDOWS sharing, you need to declare a network share on the PC that is the host of the MDB file. Windows HELP or your site's network administrator can talk to you about this topic.
You need to pay attention to the SHARE's file-system permissions as well as the file's file-system permissions. This is because the SHARE and host permissions combine to represent the final permissions seen by a user. Among other things, your SHARE will have to pretty much allow FULL ACCESS because it doesn't have the granularity you really need. You will have to rely on the host's file-system permissions to do what little can be done to protect the files. Which ain't much, I assure you.
I strongly recommend that you allow access to either a specific user group or at least choose "Authenticated Users". Do NOT use the "Everyone" group. NEVER base a permission on EVERYONE - ever. See, EVERYONE includes anonymous users and system internal (userless) processes. Viruses fall into the latter category if you ever get successfully attacked by a driver virus. If Microsoft got rid of the EVERYONE category tomorrow, I wouldn't shed a tear even though I know why it exists.
NEVER use a DENY permission to protect your files unless that DENY is very specific. Always use the absence of an ALLOW where at all possible. I could explain that at greater length but it would take a lot of typing that isn't immediately relevant.
Always consider using GROUPS (Windows-style) to allow access to the file and folder. Remember that the folder needs lots of permissions. (See note below for supplemental information.)
OK, now you are ready to protect your file using ACCESS. ("Wait", you say... "what was all of that stuff in the prior paragraph?") Windows can only protect the .MDB file as a whole. But you still need to protect the
contents of the file as identifiable entities. Only ACCESS can do this because only ACCESS understands the file internal structure.
I would also tell you how to do this but you did say you would take "reading material." OK, here's your reading assignment. SEARCH this forum for the topics "Workgroup Security" and "Securing a Database." Some of these articles will also enumerate the Windows file-system permissions you need and where you need them. (This is the "note" I mentioned earlier.)
Pay particular attention to articles that tell you how to make the database brain-dead with respect to the Admin account. It is usually the "Open Exclusive" permission of the Admin account that gets you into the situation you described. And it is the failure to properly manage & secure the workgroup that causes the Admin account to be the real troublemaker that it usually is.
This means you will need to consider two accounts in the database, one that will be your "new" admin equivalent and the other that is you when you are NOT doing admin work. And never the twain should meet.
Notice I didn't tell you that you couldn't host your database on your own machine. That isn't my call - and might not be your call either. It will be your network manager's call. If you use your own machine, though, just remember you have made it a target for others. Which is why you might run into a raft of problems with user security. I do not recommend using your own machine but it depends on availability of space on any network file server you might have. You and your network manager MUST get together to plan this activity.
If you use your assigned workstation as the host, this also means your computer cannot be shut down as long as even one user is in that database. Do you want to leave your machine running overnight if you have to leave before your last user does? If you turn off the machine while it is active, you will corrupt your database. Notice that I didn't place a conditional modifier on "corrupt" as a verb? "You WILL corrupt your database." Not MIGHT. Not COULD. WILL!!!!!
So walk into this problem with your eyes open. It is fraught with peril, with pitfalls in every direction. (And only a hobbyist writer like myself would even consider such a description as "fraught with peril."
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) we haven't had a lick of corruption. Go figure ... 
