This volume contains the proceedings of the 15th British National Conference on Databases held at Birkbcck College, London, in July 1997. The College has played a major role in database research since the early 1970s, and it is altogether fitting that the conference should at last be held at Birkbeck.
The changes in the area of databases that have occurred since the conference was first held in 1980 have been phenomenal. Databases are now ubiquitous, ranging from PC databases which sit atop almost every desktop, through data warehouses, to the vast, heterogeneous, unstructured "database" which comprises the Internet. One of the key unresolved questions is how the wealth of information within the Internet can be integrated and exploited. Our invited speaker, Larry Kerschbcrg, considers exactly this problem. In his keynote paper he proposes the use of co-operating intelligent agents called "knowledge rovers", which can be configured to seek out, retrieve and integrate data and knowledge that is specific to their mission.