Database-research pioneer Len Shapiro joins The Else Institute

Author: Sudarshan Murthy

I am pleased to announce that Prof. Leonard Shapiro (Len) has joined The Else Institute as the Principal Researcher in Information Management. This addition increases the institute's research depth, enhances its influence, and makes available a great resource to the institute's researchers and to its beneficiaries.

I have known Len for over 10 years now: We were both affiliated with the Data Intensive Systems Center and Portland State University. We have discussed many database research topics at Database Reading Group meetings: first at the Oregon Graduate Institute; then at Portland State University.

Len is an accomplished researcher, an excellent teacher, and a successful industry consultant. He invented the Hybrid Hash Join algorithm used in modern relational database management systems. And, two of his publications are among the most-cited articles in database research.

On behalf of the staff, volunteers, donors, and friends of the institute, I extend a warm welcome to Len. I look forward to working with him on exciting research projects and also to reading his posts on the institute's blog.

Bring Tellico to this decade

Author: Sudarshan Murthy


I recently learned about Tellico, an application to catalog pretty much any collection. It includes templates to record details of books, audios, videos, stamps, coins, and other common kinds of collections and it can connect to many popular data sources such as Amazon, IMDB, and PubMed. Tellico is released under GPL.

To me, the best part of Tellico is its committed author, Robby Stephenson: He has actively maintained Tellico since its inception in 2002. And, he even lists alternatives to Tellico right on the Tellico page. Kudos Robby.

I can't comment on Tellico's usability (because I haven't used it enough), but judging by the screenshots, I see it can be quite useful in managing household collections. For example, my wife should be able to use Tellico instead of the MS Excel workbook she currently uses to catalog and track our household items. (Before you ask, my designated role at home is to move items around such that the catalog becomes unreliable.)

But, Tellico's age shows, and here is how.