In its various projects the AAC makes also extensively use of traditional database management systems. In all of this work, the focus has been on developing efficient methods for the integration of relational databases and document oriented XML data.

Databases are used for a number of quite varied purposes. In the first instance, they serve as indexing tools, making use of the databases’ full text search capabilities. For smaller and medium-sized projects this method of indexing can yield quite satisfactory results, although it does have a number of obvious limitations.

Then, DBMSs also play an important role in collecting and storing various types of metadata. Two AAC projects have to be highlighted in this regard, both of which make use of a common interface linking textual corpus data to respective database entries. The first one is a large-scale prosopographical project, a number of scholars have been working on in recent years. As in most AAC projects, the methodological approach in this project has been very text-oriented, first collecting textual data concerning persons mentioned in particular parts of the corpus. Then this data has been enriched from external resources and finally made available as part of digital online editions. The other project worthy of mention deals with references to periodicals in a historical journal. Proceedings have been similar. After a thorough survey of all periodicals mentioned in a particular journal, this data was disambiguated and enriched with external data.