Described are improved systems, computer program products, and methods for an improved approach to access small to medium size objects (MOBs) stored in LOB data type columns of a RDBMS. The approach includes receiving a SQL statement comprising a retrieval of a large object (LOB). The approach also includes determining whether to return a value of the LOB or a reference to a storage location storing the value of the LOB based on: a data dictionary property of the LOB to return the value of the LOB, a function included in the SQL statement to return the value of the LOB, or a flag derived from a SQL operator tree propagation to return the value of the LOB.