On-line reference service has been set up to keep subscribers abreast - at no charge - of the world's emerging discoveries and innovations in polymer science, technology and manufacturing.

Rapra Technology, Europe's leading polymer research and test house, is offering a new service called Polymer Contents. There is no charge for this service, it is custom-created to the needs of individual subscribers and is designed to bring the world of polymers direct to the doorstep of the industry. 'This is a real opportunity for all in the sector to keep abreast - at no charge - of the world's emerging discoveries and innovations in polymer science, technology and manufacturing and, most particularly, an opportunity to monitor special interests within the industry.

To fully understand the scope of this service it is important to realise that Rapra's Polymercontents.com covers literature published by over 150 scientific, technical, economic and trade publishers' says Rien van den Hondel, Rapra Technology's manager of databases.

Every month Rapra abstracts some 400 journals, conference papers and other publications, employing a specialist staff of some 25 abstractors.

In essence, a digest of all this information will now be made available to users at http://www.polymercontents.com After a simple registration, visitors can create 'topic profiles' describing their particular interests via an easy to use menu.

Users may create as many 'topic profiles' as they want.

Each of these will result in a fortnightly e-mail, listing titles and truncated abstracts of recent, specially selected literature.

The content will be sourced from new additions to Rapra Technology's polymerlibrary.com; the largest online Polymer literature database in the world.

Publications covered by this service are journal articles, conference proceedings, trade literature, books, reports and standards.

A list of journals covered by the Polymer Library can also be downloaded.

If - on reading through the fortnightly listings - any particular abstract takes a reader's interest, it is then available to the subscriber to purchase the item via credit card.

A commercial copyright cleared full text copy of the original publication can be delivered to the reader's computer within 24 hours - more typically within a few hours of ordering.

By clicking on the unique accession number next to each title, the price for that document is displayed.

Readers can then place the documents in a shopping basket and after a secure live credit card payment Rapra's Document Delivery service will e-mail you the documents.

Details of all users will be confidential and will not be passed on to any third parties.

Who might use this service?

* Processor looking for new polymers for a specific application.

* Marketing manager interested in market trends.

* Chemist trying to improve properties of polymers.

* Sales manager keeping an eye on products announced by competitors.

* Purchase manager searching for new polymers for a specific application.

* The list of individuals who'll benefit from this free service is virtually endless.

Some subject examples for individual users are: * Uses of thermoplastic elastomers.

* How to work with nano-composites.

* Environmentally friendly blowing agents.

* Properties of certain blends of polymers.

* Chemical resistance of hoses.

* Adhesives for automotive applications.

* Non-destructive testing of composites.

* blow moulding of PET.

* Electric injection moulding machines.