The 8th International Database Workshop, organized by the Hong Kong Computer Society and held in Hong Kong in July 1997, dedicated its theme to Data Mining, Data Warehouse and Client/Server Databases with separate focuses on the Academic and the Industrial Streams. It brought together database practitioners, researchers and vendors to share and explore their methodologies and experiences of advance database systems. . These proceedings contain 21 of the selected papers received for the section on the Academic Stream, written by database practitioners and researchers from 13 countries around the world. It will serve as a useful and practical technology reference book on the latest findings in the field.