The RefXAS database under DAPHNE4NFDI enables users to access quality-controlled, curated X-ray absorption spectra of references along with important metadata and to share their data with the research community in easy steps.

To scientists working with small-molecule or organometallic compounds, the Cambridge Structural Database constitutes an extremely important tool for reference to individual crystal structures and as a data source for statistical investigations. The article by Groom et al. provides updated information on the use, development and future of this database.

Through the analysis of more than 115 000 metal-binding sites in metalloproteins, experimentalists are offered useful reference data that improve the understanding of metal-binding interactions and protein coordination. Carboxylate coordination, which is common for a variety of metals, is especially highlighted.

The International Tables Symmetry Database (https://symmdb.iucr.org/), part of International Tables for Crystallography, is a collection of individual databases of crystallographic space-group and point-group information. Programs are provided to access and interactively visualize the data, and also allow new data to be calculated `on the fly', facilitating the in-depth study of group–subgroup relations, domain structures and twinning, families of related crystal structures and phase transitions, and the prediction of new crystal structures.

A prototype application, pyDataRecognition, is described and tested. It has the goal that, given a measured powder diffraction pattern, it will return a list of publications from the IUCr Journals database that might be related based on the similarity to powder diffraction data deposited for those publications. This explores the possibility of a machine-readable literature where, for example, relevant studies may be found automatically through data similarity matches of online databases.

The fully open character of the Raman Open Database makes this novel database freely and completely usable by anybody worldwide: academics, those working in industry and the general public.

Data curation practices of the Crystallography Open Database are described with greater focus being placed on the cif_validate program, capable of validating crystallographic information files against both DDL1 and DDLm dictionaries.

IMRPS is an interactive database for identifying and displaying the inserted and modified residues present in the protein structures available in the Protein Data Bank.

iQual is a computer program that utilizes the optimized Crystal_db database, derived from the Crystallography Open Database, for efficient searching and matching of experimental X-ray diffraction patterns for qualitative phase analysis, employing a two-step approach and matrix operations for enhanced efficiency.

Experimental crystal structures that are amenable for inclusion in global phase diagrams as previously developed are identified.