How would you connect to a database in a book? :) Seriously, connecting locally using DBI is no different than remotely. There are plenty of sample databases (schemas and/or data) available out there (http://dev.mysql.com/doc/world-setup/en/world-setup.html for example). mysql allows for importing from many other databases, so if you find binaries from another engine, you can probably import it. Load it up locally and have at it.