DiSC is a yearly electronic journal that aims at becoming the most comprehensive and timely source of information on database research. DiSC '99 includes the full contents of the 1998 SIGMOD Record and the proceedings of SIGMOD/PODS '98, VLDB '98, and of two workshops sponsored by the US National Science Foundation. We also include MPEG videos of the two SIGMOD keynote talks by Bill Gates (Microsoft) and  David Patterson (University of California at Berkeley) and a host of other material not available in the SIGMOD/PODS paper proceedings, such as presentations and snapshots from the demonstrations.

In this issue of DiSC, there are 3700 HTML documents, over 400 PDF files, more than 2000 image files, and 11,000 links. Therefore, we provide different search methods, including full-text search of the papers, to help you navigate through all this information.

DiSC '99 has been made possible by all the ACM SIGMOD members and authors who have contributed electronic versions of their papers and by the effort of the production team at the ADVIS lab of the Worcester Polytechnic Institute.

We are in the process of considering new initiatives for future editions of DiSC, including the publication of original research work that is best presented in multimedia format. We hope you will enjoy the material herein and we welcome your comments and suggestions at our DiSC feedback site.

Isabel F. Cruz
Founding Editor

Worcester, April 17th, 1999