Android design patterns database driven applications

I am new to Android development. I开发者_如何学运维 have a project that will involve multiple applications, all accessing a single database with multiple tables. 80% of the tables in the database are populated via importing data from the miniSD card.

I want to build the project so that a service will handle the import in the background (this only happens when there are new .csv files available on the miniSD card), and then a content provider(s) will make the data available to any requesting applications.

Can you explain the general building blocks for such a project, and what the best approach would be? I am still trying to understand these foundational pieces of Android development.