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The German Iron and Steel Institute in Düsseldorf invited me to spend three weeks visiting technical information services on the Continent. Three aims were kept in view: to examine methods of operating information services, to study the attitude of industrial management and research toward technical information, to contact some of the leading people in the technical information field in Western Europe. Twenty‐two technical information organizations are described.

For the first time since the war the Dechema Corrosion Congress was revived at Frankfurt last November. Dechema, the German Chemical Plant Manufacturers' Association, set up a working party of representatives of engineering associations and similar institutions concerned with corrosion to organise the two‐day congress. Papers were presented by experts from Belgium, Egypt, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Switzerland and Turkey, and over 700 delegates from 12 countries took part. Here are summaries of some of the papers, specially translated and prepared for CORROSION TECHNOLOGY. Further summaries will be published next month.

Cuban biotechnology database. In the last few years, Cuba has made significant advancements in biotechnology and related fields — so much so that the Automated Information Services of the Institute of Documentation and Scientific and Technical Information (IDICT) has developed a referral database on worldwide biotechnology institutions.

This is the third and last of the series of summaries of papers presented at the Dechema Corrosion Congress held in Frankfurt. Earlier reports of the congress have been given in the January and February issues of CORROSION TECHNOLOGY. This month the summaries are of papers on corrosion prevention methods.

Continuing the summaries of papers presented at the recent Dechema Corrosion Congress, the following are all concerned with electro‐chemical mechanisms. Next month our report of the congress will end with summaries of some of the papers dealing with corrosion prevention.

Epoxy Resins, by Irving Skeist and George R. Somerville. Reinhold Publishing Corporation, New York (Chapman & Hall Ltd., London), 1958. Pp. 293, illus. 44s. This textbook outlines the properties, fabrication and uses of epoxy resins without going deeply into their chemistry and therefore will be most useful to design engineers, manufacturers requiring sound information on potential raw materials, students and supervisory workers in the plastics industry. The epoxies are a comparatively new group of compounds, so that information about them is all the more needed. They have interesting and valuable properties as materials for coatings, adhesives, potting of electrical components, tooling, low‐pressure moulding and as stabiliser‐plasticisers for vinyl resins. They are making the greatest advances in applications where resistance to acids, alkalis or organic chemicals is required —in washing machines, acid electro‐plating tanks, drum linings and laboratory furniture—the corrosion‐resistant properties stemming from the fact that stable ether linkages are the only bonding other than carbon to carbon.

Virus‐Blocker A program called Virus‐Blocker has been developed by a West German company, Expert Informatik GmbH. There are versions in English and Dutch, as well as German. The company claims that no special expertise is needed to operate this program, and that it can recognise, and to renderharmless, a dozen of the most common viruses, including the infamous ‘Israel’ and ‘Black‐Jack’. Virus‐Blocker is marketed by ISMC AG of Switzerland.