All, I thought people might be interested in an online class Stanford is offering called "Introduction to Databases". It is taught by Jennifer Widom, who is one of the coauthors of one of the best database books I've read [1].
Because SPARQL is based on relational algebra, I found the book to be extremely valuable in understanding how a SPARQL query engine works (especially query optimization). A lot of the other topics are also very relevant to work on Jena: physical data storage, costs for different join algorithms, and transactions. I am signed up for the course (which starts next Monday). If people were interested, I thought we could discuss some of the topics during the semester on or off this list. -Stephen [1] http://www.amazon.com/Database-Systems-Complete-Book-2nd/dp/0131873253/
