WHY HAVE CRYSTALLOGRAPHIC DATABASES? Dr. Olga Kennard, Cambridge Crystallographic Data Centre, 12 Union Road, Cambridge CB2 1EZ, England

Crystallographers have a long tradition of bringing together the experimental results of structure analyses in databases. These cover proteins, organic and inorganic compounds, metals and alloys. With the continuing increase in the number of structure determinations it seems pertinent to ask why we have these databases. The talk will examine their origin, development and future directions. Of necessity, each of these databases can not be covered in detail, and will mainly be illustrated by reference to the Cambridge Structural Database. The questions raised, however, are sufficiently general to be applicable to all crystallographic databases.