The purpose of the material in this chapter is to provide guidelines for builders, maintainers, and distributors of computerized materials properties databases for any delivery system, for example, personal computer, workstation, mainframe, or online systems. It provides some basic tenets of database management and operating philosophy. These tenets are intended to ensure the development, maintenance, and distribution of machine-readable material property databases that are easily accessed and utilized, and are responsive to users' needs and expectations with respect to quality, reliability, and degree of documentation.