In this workshop, we will discuss why you might consider relational databases to store research data. We will go over how to insert data in and retrieve data from a database using R and duckDB (duckdb.org). We will focus on how to use the R dbplyr (dbplyr.tidyverse.org) package to integrate databases into tidyverse-focused analytical workflows. This workshop will cover three main points: 1) Introduce concepts of a database and discuss why you might want to have/want to use one, 2) How to integrate the use of a database into an R analytical workflow, and 3) Hands-on exercise using duckDB, dbplyr and how it can be used to learn some SQL basics. This workshop is part of the UC Love Data Week 2025 Program (uc-love-data-week.github.io) and is open to all UC affiliates. Please register with your UC campus email.