# About this guide

For general information about the Derby documentation, such as a complete list of books, conventions, and further reading, see Getting Started with Derby.

For more information about Derby, visit the Derby website at http://db.apache.org/derby. The website provides pointers to the Derby Wiki and other resources, such as the derby-users mailing list, where you can ask questions about issues not covered in the documentation.

- Purpose of this guide
  This guide, Tuning Derby, explains how to tune systems, databases, specific tables and indexes, and queries for performance. This guide also provides an in-depth study of query optimization and performance issues.
- Audience
  This book is a reference for Derby users, typically application developers. Derby users who are not familiar with the SQL standard or the Java programming language will benefit from consulting books on those topics.
- How this guide is organized
  This guide includes the following sections.