1 Introduction

The Centre de données astronomiques de Strasbourg (CDS) was founded in 1972 as the Centre de Données Stellaires, and installed in Strasbourg as the result of an agreement between the INAG (Institut National d'Astronomie et de Géophysique), now INSU (Institut National des Sciences de l'Univers), and Université Louis Pasteur. This was the outcome from the very prospective vision of Jean Delhaye, then Director of INAG, who anticipated the importance of computer-readable data. It was decided to found CDS as a part of the French research system, as a Data Center serving the international astronomical scientific community.

The objectives of CDS at its creation could be summarized as follows:

• collect "useful'' data about astronomical sources, in electronic form;
• improve them by critical evaluation and combination;
• distribute the results to the international community;
• conduct research programs using the data collected.

Insertion of the CDS into a research institution, the Observatoire astronomique de Strasbourg, helps to maintain direct contacts with the evolution of astronomy, and with researchers' actual needs.

At the beginning, CDS was dealing with stellar data, aiming at the study of the galactic structure. In 1983, it was decided that SIMBAD, one of the two important CDS services at that time, would also deal with other galactic and extragalactic objets - i.e., with all astronomical objects outside the Solar System. The CDS's name was changed to Centre de Données astronomiques de Strasbourg, thus preserving the acronym which was already well known.

In recent years, research activities in astronomy have evolved significantly, with the very rapid development of on-line information at all levels, from observatory archives to results published in journals. The challenge is now to deal with information more than with data, which includes data, but also know-how about data, technical information about instruments, published results, compilations, etc. The CDS goals can now be summarized as collect, homogenize, distribute, and preserve astronomical information for the scientific use of the whole astronomical community. This "mission statement'' still contains all the drivers from the early CDS charter: dealing with electronic data, taking up an international role, developing expertise on astronomical data, having research as a goal.

All on-line CDS services can be accessed from the CDS home page on the World-Wide Web.