The Cambridge Crystallographic Data Centre (CCDC) encourages the deposition of crystal structure data
where no formal literature publication of these data is envisaged. These depositions are referred to as
Private Communications to the Cambridge Structural Database (CSD), and will contain the author
list supplied by the depositor and the institutional address of the depositor.
However, depositors of Private Communications should be aware that some journals will
not accept papers which contain data that have previously been published in any form,
including electronic publication on web pages or in a distributed database.
Submission of a Private Communication to the CSD implies that the depositing authors are aware of possible
restrictions on future publication.
Depositions should be:
in CIF format, including author details
sent as a plain text ASCII file to:
The following links give additional information on:
As with other forms of data deposition to the CCDC, you will receive a CCDC deposition number
(CCDC nnnnnn) normally within 3 working days.
If in the future the data are included in a publication, please include the CCDC number.
if the Private Communication is referenced in a paper, a citation of the style outlined in the
deposition FAQs should be used.
if the Private Communication proceeds to a full publication, include the
CCDC number in a footnote (or as required by the Notes to Authors).
Note: when such a paper is published, the Private Communication author list and
address tags will be replaced by the full bibliographic details from the
published paper. The author list from the Private Communication will be lost.
You are invited to download the CCDC's enCIFer program from this site for CIF checking and editing.
