When possible, readings are linked from this page. (You may need to use a UCLA VPN.) If no link is present, the reading is posted on BruinLearn.
WEEK ONE TWO THREE FOUR FIVE SIX SEVEN EIGHT NINE TEN
Week 1: Introduction
In class:
History of Databases, directed by Jon Plutte (Impact Media Group, 2011), https://www.computerhistory.org/revolution/memory-storage/8/265/2207.
Week 2: Precursors
Robertson, Craig. The Filing Cabinet: A Vertical History of Information (selections). University of Minnesota Press, 2021.
Rosenthal, Caitlin. Accounting for Slavery: Masters and Management (selections). Harvard University Press, 2018.
Carter, Daniel, Amelia Acker, and Dan Sholler. “Investigative Approaches to Researching Information Technology Companies.” Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology 72, no. 6 (2021): 655–66. https://doi.org/10.1002/asi.24446.
Optional
Yates, JoAnne. Control Through Communication: The Rise of System in American Management. Johns Hopkins University Press, 1989.
Week 3: Beginnings
Haigh, Thomas. “‘A Veritable Bucket of Facts’: Origins of the Data Base Management System.” ACM SIGMOD Record 35, no. 2 (2006): 33–49. https://doi.org/10.1145/1147376.1147382.
Grafton, William. “IMS: Past, Present, Future.” Datamation, September 1983. https://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/access/text/2022/02/102796683-05-01-acc.pdf
Driscoll, Kevin. “From Punched Cards to ‘Big Data’: A Social History of Database Populism.” Communication 1, no. 1 (2012): 1–33. https://doi.org/10.7275/R5B8562P.
Olson, H.A. “Exclusivity, Teleology and Hierarchy: Our Aristotelean Legacy.” Knowledge Organization 29, no. 2 (1999): 65–73. https://www.imrpress.com/journal/KO/26/2/10.5771/0943-7444-1999-2-65/pdf.
Optional
Berman, Uri. Birth of IMS. R0367.2017. Computer History Museum, 2007. https://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/access/text/2016/08/500001032-05-01-acc.pdf.
“Chapter 3: Making Data Programmable.” In Archiving Machines: From Punch Cards to Platforms, by Amelia Acker. The Information Society Series. MIT Press, 2025. https://direct.mit.edu/books/oa-monograph/6055/Archiving-MachinesFrom-Punch-Cards-to-Platforms.
Week 4: Pointing
Haigh, Thomas. “How Charles Bachman Invented the DBMS, a Foundation of Our Digital World.” Communications of the ACM 59, no. 7 (2016): 25–30. https://cacm.acm.org/opinion/how-charles-bachman-invented-the-dbms-a-foundation-of-our-digital-world/
Sections 1 and 2. Metaxides, A., W. B. Helgeson, R. E. Seth, et al. Data Base Task Group Report to the CODASYL Programming Language Committee. Association for Computing Machinery, 1971. https://dl.acm.org/doi/epdf/10.1145/1387145
Sawtelle, Thomas K. The Emerging Role of the Data Base Manager. R-1253-PR. United States Airforce Project Rand, 1973. http://archive.org/details/ERIC_ED095918.
Deleuze, Gilles, Félix Guattari, Brian Massumi, and Gilles Deleuze. A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia (selections). Ed. 2004, Repr. 2011. Continuum, 2011.
Week 5: Relating
Codd, E. F. “A Relational Model of Data for Large Shared Data Banks.” Communications of the ACM 13, no. 6 (1970): 377–87. https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/362384.362685.
Darwen, Hugh. “The Relational Model: Beginning of an Era.” IEEE Annals of the History of Computing 34, no. 4 (2012): 30–37. https://doi.org/10.1109/MAHC.2012.50.
Kent, William. “A Simple Guide to Five Normal Forms in Relational Database Theory.” Communications of the ACM 26, no. 2 (1983): 120–25. https://doi.org/10.1145/358024.358054.
Mackenzie, Adrian. “More Parts Than Elements: How Databases Multiply.” Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 30, no. 2 (2012): 335–50. https://doi.org/10.1068/d6710.
For reference
DB-Engines, “DB-Engines Ranking,” DB-Engines, December 2025, https://db-engines.com/en/ranking.
Week 6: Snowflakes & Stars
Kimball, Ralph. “The Soul of the Data Warehouse, Part One: Drilling Down.” Intelligent Enterprise (San Mateo) 6, no. 5 (2003).
Kimball, Ralph. “The Soul of the Data Warehouse, Part Two: Drilling Across.” Intelligent Enterprise (San Mateo) 6, no. 6 (2003): 16.
Haggerty, Kevin D., and Richard V. Ericson. “The Surveillant Assemblage.” The British Journal of Sociology 51, no. 4 (2000): 605–22. https://doi.org/10.1080/00071310020015280.
Littletree, Sandra, Miranda Belarde-Lewis, and Marisa Duarte. “Centering Relationality: A Conceptual Model to Advance Indigenous Knowledge Organization Practices.” Knowledge Organization 47, no. 5 (2020): 410–26. https://doi.org/10.5771/0943-7444-2020-5-410.
Week 7: Shape-shifting
Castelle, Michael. “Relational and Non-Relational Models in the Entextualization of Bureaucracy.” Computational Culture, no. 3 (November 2013). http://computationalculture.net/relational-and-non-relational-models-in-the-entextualization-of-bureaucracy/.
Dourish, Paul. “No SQL: The Shifting Materialities of Database Technology.” Computational Culture, no. 4 (November 2014). http://computationalculture.net/no-sql-the-shifting-materialities-of-database-technology/.
Angles, Renzo, and Claudio Gutierrez. “Survey of Graph Database Models.” ACM Comput. Surv. 40, no. 1 (2008): 1:1-1:39. https://doi.org/10.1145/1322432.1322433.
Useful references
Marc Seeger, “Key-Value Stores: A Practical Overview,” Ultra-Large-Sites SS09, Stuttgart, Germany, September 21, 2009, https://blog.marc-seeger.de/assets/papers/Ultra_Large_Sites_SS09-Seeger_Key_Value_Stores.pdf.
Dave Bergmann and Cole Stryker, “What Is Vector Embedding?,” IBM, June 12, 2024, https://www.ibm.com/think/topics/vector-embedding.
Week 8: Clouding
Abadi, Daniel J., Peter A. Boncz, and Stavros Harizopoulos. “Column-Oriented Database Systems.” Proceedings of the VLDB Endowment 2, no. 2 (2009): 1664–65. https://doi.org/10.14778/1687553.1687625.
Gorelik, Alex. The Enterprise Big Data Lake. O’Reilly Media, 2019. https://learning.oreilly.com/library/view/the-enterprise-big/9781491931547/.
“Platform Capitalism.” In Platform Capitalism, electronic edition, by Nick Srnicek. Theory Redux. Polity, 2017. https://mudancatecnologicaedinamicacapitalista.files.wordpress.com/2019/02/platform-capitalism.pdf.
Week 9: Everything Everywhere All at Once
Kelly, Makena. “DOGE Is Building a Master Database to Surveil and Track Immigrants.” Tags. Wired, April 18, 2025. https://www.wired.com/story/doge-collecting-immigrant-data-surveil-track/.
Koebler, Jason. “Larry Ellison’s AI-Powered Surveillance Dystopia Is Already Here.” 404 Media, September 17, 2024. https://www.404media.co/larry-ellisons-ai-powered-surveillance-dystopia-is-already-here/.
Saunders, Jonny L. “Surveillance Graphs.” Jonny Saunders Internet Website, April 2, 2023. https://jon-e.net/surveillance-graphs.
Zamini, Mohamad, Hassan Reza, and Minou Rabiei. “A Review of Knowledge Graph Completion.” arXiv:2208.11652. Preprint, arXiv, August 24, 2022. https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2208.11652.
For reference
Community Justice Exchange. From Data Criminalization to Prison Abolition. n.d. Accessed April 21, 2025. https://abolishdatacrim.org/en/report/full.
Stegeman, John, Kara Doriani O’Shee, and Ryan Peden. “Is a Knowledge Graph a Graph Database?” Neo4j Blog, April 25, 2025. https://neo4j.com/blog/knowledge-graph/knowledge-graph-vs-graph-database/.
Iliadis, Andrew, and Amelia Acker. “The Palantir Files: Public Interest Archives for Platform Accountability.” Information, Communication & Society 27, no. 13 (2024): 2343–65. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2024.2352624.
Week 10: Workshopping and Peer Review
