This chapter establishes the context for the development and deployment of the Crystallographic Information Framework as a standard for defining and exchanging crystallographic data. Science in the 21st century is increasingly seen as data-driven, and science funding increasingly requires formal data management plans. The criteria for durable data retention are explained in terms of the Open Archive Information Systems (OAIS) data model. Interoperability between scientific domains is developed under so-called `FAIR' and `FACT' guiding principles. Error-free and lossless information transfer, whether between applications in a single field of science or across different scientific fields, needs standards for organizing information (in the form of agreed file syntaxes, encodings and layout) and for tagging the individual data values with clearly defined semantic tags (from subject-specific controlled vocabularies or ontologies). The Crystallographic Information Framework is designed to meet all these requirements.