IRM in the 1990s

from the Database Directions Technologies for IRM 49 Workshop Editors 1 Alfonso F. Cardenas Elizabeth N. Fong, Alan H. Goldfine IRM in a Decentralized/Distributed Introduction 1 Environment 66 Robert M. Curtice Olin Bray SPECIAL ISSUE FROM THE FOURTH DATABASE DIRECTIONS WORKSHOP: INFORMATION RESOURCE MANAGEMENT—MAKING IT WORK Chairperson, Technical Committee on Database Engineering Prot. Gio Wiederhold Medicine and Computer Science Stanford University Stanford, CA 94305 (415) 497-0685 ARPANET: Wiederhold SRI-Al Editor-in-Chief, Database Engineering Dr. David Reiner Computer Corporation of America Four Cambridge Center Cambridge, MA 02142 (617) 492-8860 ARPANET: Reiner CCA UUCP: decvax!cca!reiner Database Engineering Bulletin is a quarterly publication of the IEEE Computer Society Technical Committee on Database Engineering. Its scope of interest includes: data structures and models, access strategies, access control techniques. database architecture, database machines. intelligent front ends, mass storage for very large databases, distributed database systems and techniques, database software design and implementation, database utilities, database security and related areas. Contribution to the Bulletin is hereby solicited. News items. letters, technical papers, book reviews, meeting previews. summaries, case studies, etc.. should be sent to the Editor, All letters to the Editor will be considered for publication unless accompanied by a request to the contrary. Technical papers are unrelereed. Opinions expressed in contributions are those of the indi vidual author rather than the official position of the TC on Database Engineering, the IEEE Computer Society, or orga nizations with which the author may be affiliated. Associate Editors, Database Engineering Dr. Haran Boral Microelectronics and Computer Technology Corporation (MCC) 9430 Research Blvd Austin, TX 78759 (512) 834-3469 Prof. Fred Lochovsky Department of Computer Science University of Toronto Toronto, Ontario Canada M5S1A1 (416) 978-7441 Dr. C. Mohan IBM Research Laboratory K55-281 ~600 Cottle Road San Jose. CA 95193 (408) 256-6251 Prot Yannis Vassiliou Graduate School of Business Administration New York Univers~ly 90 Trinity Place New York. NY (212) 598-7536 Memoership in the Database Engineering Technical Com mittee is open to individuals who demonstrate willingness to actively participate in the various actvities of the TC. A member of the IEEE Computer Society may join the TC as a full member. A non-member of the Computer Society may join as a participating member. with approval from at least one officer of the TC. Both full members and participating members of the TC are entitled to receive the quarterly bulletin of the TC free of charge. until further notice. Dear TC DBE Member or Correspondent: I attended the meeting of the Technical Activities Board of the IEEE Computer Society at COMPCON on March 5th, 1986. Important changes announced in regard to our Tech nical Committee are a significant (30%) reduction in Computer Society contribution to the Technical Committees. Our Database Engineering Bulletin is a costly item (estimate $18,000 per year), whereas a fair and balanced support formula would only net us about $1,200~ The formula proposed is based on a fixed amount per TC pius a fixed amount per TC member who is also a Computer Society member. It appears we have about 500 Computer Society members and another 1000 correspondents who receive the bulletin. The numbers are not up-to-date because no new members have been added to the files for about 3 months due to a staff shortage at the IEEE Washington office. There are other sources of income if we want to continue this bulletin and its quality. 1. Charge recipients of the DBE Bulletin. a. Charge all recipients, but provide an additional free newsletter to IEEE CS members. b. Charge a differential amount to members. c. Charge non-members only. This latter would require some success with points 2 and 3. 2. Operate conferences, tutorials, and workshops to yield a surplus. The prime candi date is the Data Engineering Conference. It is currently not budgeted to yield the required surplus. 3. Negotiate with a commercial publisher distribution of the DBE Bulletin in a way so that we reduce the publishing and distribution cost. Charging must recover most production costs and the costs of billing (about $5). A possible amount would be equivalent to typical ACM SIGMOD membership fees, i.e., about $15—$20. We realize that this would be a heavy burden, especially on our foreign correspondents. Note that the ACM SIGMOD membership fee was only $3, but is now increasing to $15, and that the ACM SIGMOD Record just started publishing again. The new environment requires additional effort to run the TC. My own term is past, but we are happy that Sushil Jajodia has agreed to accept the chairmanship. I will, of course, remain available to help in the transition. I expect he will look for help and appoint a vice chairman and perhaps a treasurer and secretary. A plan to share both a joint TC and ACM SIGMOD board member are still in abeyance, although a number of you volunteered. The ACM and IEEE have decided to initially only have one group interact strongly, not our group. Please feel free to correspond with Sushil Jajodia (Computer Science and Systems Branch, Code 7590, Naval Research Laboratory, Washington, DC 20375-5000) or with John Musa, Vice President for Technical Activities of the IEEE CS (Bell Laboratories — 3A332, Whippany Road, Whippany, NJ 07981) about the issues facing the TC, and feel especially free to volunteer your services to help the TC on Database Engineering maintain its stature. We have, I think, the best bulletin, we are the major sponsor for what is becoming an excellent conference, and are co-sponsoring many exciting activities. Gio Wiederhold