The Reciprocal Net is a distributed database used by research crystallographers to store information about molecular structures; much of the data is available to the general public. The Reciprocal Net project is still under development. Currently, there are 18 participating crystallography laboratories online. The project is funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and part of the National Science Digital Library. The contents of this collection will come principally from structures contributed by participating crystallography laboratories, thus providing a means for teachers, students, and the general public to connect better with current chemistry research. The Reciprocal Net's emphasis is on obtaining structures of general interest and usefulness to those several classes of digital library users.