A statistical analysis of entries from the CSD (Cambridge Structural Database) showed that the average hydrogen-bond geometry to the nitrogen acceptor atom of the thiocyanate anion was not collinear with respect to the molecular axis of the anion and so not collinear with the nitrogen lone pair [Tchertanov & Pascard (1996). Acta Cryst. B52, 685-690]. This somewhat unexpected result has been investigated further using theoretical energy calculations applying Intermolecular Perturbation Theory in combination with a more detailed statistical analysis of an appropriate CSD dataset. The energy calculations pointed to the formation of the strongest hydrogen bonds in the nitrogen lone-pair direction. The statistical analysis showed that this directionality occurs in cases where the N atom accepts one hydrogen bond only. The non-linear average hydrogen-bond geometry observed in the earlier study can be attributed to multiple hydrogen bonding to the N atom. In such cases, there is a shift away from the optimum orientation.observed frequently (Legon & Millen, 1982;Taylor et al., 1983) and can be ascribed, primarily, to optimization of the electrostatic attraction which is the largest energy contribution to hydrogen-bond formation. It is difficult to draw a general conclusion from the study by Baranovskii et al. (1985), however, as water molecules appear to have special donor features by comparison with other (aliphatic) hydroxyl donors (Tse et al., 1980; Kroon-Bateburg & van Duijneveldt, 1986;Zheng & Merz, 1992). In theoretical calculations (Lommerse et al., 1997) ether O atoms accept water hydroxyl donors in the direction of one of their lone pairs, but methanol hydroxyl donors between their lone pairs. This paper presents a more detailed study of hydrogen bonding to thiocyanate anions. A further statistical survey of CSD information is presented which considers the effect of hydrogen-bond coordination on the mean hydrogen-bond geometry to thiocyanate anions. Theoretical energy calculations using Intermolecular Perturbation Theory (IMPT: Hayes & Stone, 1984) for a suitable model system are also presented.