1. Executive summary; 2. DBMS issues in the mainframe world; 3. What does a database do? 4. Database models : the conceptual level; 5. Database architectures and navigations; 6. Database products; 7. Distributed databases; 8. Future directions of database management : - Difficulty in predicting where databases are headed; - Hardware trends; - Telecommunications trends; - Changes in the way systems are being built; - Extrapolation of database trends; 9. Conclusion; List of tables; List of figures;.