The Eighth International Conference on Extending Database Technology, EDBT 2002, was held in Prague, Czech Republic, March 25–27, 2002. It marks the 50th anniversary of Charles University’s Faculty of Mathematics and Physics and is the most recent in a series of conferences dedicated to the dissemination and exchange of the latest advances in data management. Previous conferences occurred in Konstanz, Valencia, Avignon, Cambridge, Vienna, and Venice. The topical theme of this year’s conference is Data Management in the New Millennium, which encourages the community to see beyond the management of massive databases by conventional database management systems and to extend database technology to support new services and application areas. The intention is to spur greater interest in more integrated solutions to user problems, which often implies the consideration of data management issues in entire information systems infrastructures. There is data (almost) everywhere, and data access is needed (almost) always and everywhere. New technologies, services, and app- cations that involve the broader notion of data management are emerging more rapidly than ever, and the database community has much to o?er. The call for papers attracted numerous submissions, including 207 research papers, which is a new record for EDBT. The program committee selected 36 research papers, 6 industrial and applications papers, 13 software demos, and 6 tutorials for presentation at the conference. In addition, the conference program includes three keynote speeches, by Jari Ahola, Ian Horrocks, and Hans-J¨org Schek, and a panel.