Office 2k(excel)

Our local historical society has created a SS with 5 columns, doc#,
category, date of doc, box#, folder#.
We want people to be able to search the docs, sort and/or filter according
to what they are looking for and print out results of search.
Here's the catch- we don't want them to be able to permanently change any of
the data in the columns AND we want the ss to retain it's original format
when they close out of Excel.
I read that you can disable the save alert using VBA when they close out but
not sure if there is a way for folks to get around this even by mistake.
Also read that the later versions of Office allows more ways to protect the
ss. Would this be the way to go?

Yes, we'll keep a 'clean' backup copy on a different system plus a copy on a
cd/dvd but we'd rather not have to reload it everytime someone uses the
system open to our members.

Thanks for any suggestions.