Historical remarks have been removed.
Databases are ubiquitous, but are also seen as contributing to 'information overload'.
We must reconsider why people need databases, or, more in particular, data to be retrieved from the databases. We need data to make decisions. We can exploit the definition implied by Shannon in his Information Theory in 1949, that information is novel, i.e., previously unknown to its receiver and hence can lead to action. The making of decisions means making a choice among alternatives, and having more information helps in assessing the cost and benefits of the alternatives. Today's databases do not support the decision making processes directly.