Advice needed

[splashout1]

Hi hopefully there will be one of the PH massive that can offer some advice. I currently am employed by a mailing house as their IT manager which has given me a great base understanding of many things such as data work. I enjoy the database side of things but do not do that much so what i am asking is advice on what i would need to learn in order to perhaps go down the database management and/or programing side of things. For example sql what is the best way to learn this is it a case of get a server and play with it? What other things would be good to have etc etc any advice greatfully recieved