In SQL all names (field/tablenames etc.) should be case insensitive. Various DBMS handle the case of names differently. For that reason DBIx::Recordset translates all names to lower case, ensuring your application will run with any DBMS, regardless of whether names are returned in lower/uppercase by the DBMS. Some DBMS are case-sensitive (I know at least Sybase, depending on your collate settings). To use such a case-sensitive DBMS, it is best to create your database with all names written in lowercase. In a situation where this isn't possible, you can set $PreserveCase to 1. In this case DBIx::Recordset will not perform any case translation. NOTE: $PreserveCase is still experimental and may change in future releases.