Most books on databases have the size and content of a book of magic written in the ancient language of Tolkien"s Ents. To counter this trend, "Introduction to Database Systems" is small and concise by design. It aims to provide students, academics and professionals with a rigorous, convenient and economical reference. The book describes the essential concepts pertaining to the design and programming of database applications with relational database management systems. It covers conceptual modelling with the entity-relationship model and logical modelling with the relational model. It also presents the techniques for the normalisation of logical designs based on functional dependencies, i.e. the decomposition into Boyce-Codd and third normal forms. Also covered are t-upple and domain relational calculi, as well as relational algebra.This book illustrates the main SQL data definition and data manipulation statements and looks at contemporary approaches to coupling SQL with general purpose programming languages. "Introduction to Database Systems" concludes with a brief catalogue raisonne of textbooks on databases.