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One of a series of papers presented at a Symposium “Designed with Thermal Spraying in the '80s” organised by the Association of Metal Sprayers at the Europa Hotel, London W.1 on 22 April, 1982.

Last month we published abstracts and summaries of some of the papers presented at the Congress, which was held at the Imperial College of Science and Technology from April 10–15 under the auspices of the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry. In this issue we publish further abstracts and summaries together with illustrations of many of the corrosionists attending and photographs of some of the many visits which were arranged to works and laboratories. The Congress attracted over 800 delegates.

Digital certificates promise to provide the next major leap forward in authentication, and are in fact in use today to secure some e‐commerce transactions. The paper describes what digital certificates are, what they can be used for and what the state of this technology is at present; it also discusses the problems hindering wider deployment of certificates and what needs to be done for them to gain wider acceptance.

Digital library research has attracted much attention in the most developed, and in a number of developing, countries. While many digital library research projects are funded by government agencies and national and international bodies, some are run by specific academic and research institutions and libraries, either individually or collaboratively. While some digital library projects, such as the ELINOR project in the UK, the first two phases of the eLib (Electronic Libraries) Programme in the UK, and the first phase of DLI (Digital Library Initiative) in the US, are now over, a number of other projects are currently under way in different parts of the world. Beginning with the definitions and characteristics of digital libraries, as proposed by various researchers, this paper provides brief accounts of some major digital library projects that are currently in progress, or are just completed, in different parts of the world. There follows a review of digital library research under sixteen major headings. Literature for this review has been identified through a search on LISA CD‐ROM database, and a Dialog search on library and information science databases, and the resulting output has been supplemented by a scan of the various issues of D‐Lib Magazine and Ariadne, and the websites of various organisations and institutions engaged in digital library research. The review indicates that we have learned a lot through digital library research within a short span of time. However, a number of issues are yet to be resolved. The paper ends with an indication of the research issues that need to be addressed and resolved in the near future in order to bring the digital library from the researcher‘s laboratory to the real life environment.

WE must apologise for the delayed appearance of the article on the Paris Aero Exhibition by M. de Marolles. The show opened so late in November that only by exact adherence to a schedule which we had prearranged was it, we hoped, possible for it to appear, in synchrony with the closing of the exhibition, in our issue published on December G. Unfortunately, through the vagaries of the French or British Post Office—or both—in spite of the author's posting his manuscript strictly to time, it did not arrive until just too late.

WE cannot help envying those who have achieved fixed and definite views on the question of education and training. There is no subject on which opinions differ more widely. It is as many sided as a dice—and there are moments of pessimism when we feel that the results depend almost equally on chance. The real truth is, we suppose, that mental outlooks and temperaments differ to such an extent that what is the perfect curriculum for one student is totally unsuitable for another. In a perfect World, where time and expense were limitless, each candidate would follow his own course with tutors specially selected to care for his own particular needs. But unfortunately this is not possible and it is necessary for each student to be treated as one of a mass and pressed into the chosen mould. If he is so unfortunate as to be incompressible into that particular shape, then so much the worse for him and he cannot avoid the fate of being thrown out as a reject.

To give an overview of the current state and trends in authentication and authorisation in satisfying academic library users' mobility and instant access to digital information resources, and to propose that libraries strongly support efforts to establish a global authentication and authorisation infrastructure.

An overview of some national projects towards such an infrastructure for public institutions, including libraries, is provided.

There are many projects working towards such an infrastructure, but no single widely accepted authentication and authorisation infrastructure exists yet. A global authentication and authorisation infrastructure will enable users to use a single username and a password for all local and remote library services. It will consist of interconnected authentication/authorisation servers, where each institution will be responsible for a local user database.

The list of projects towards global authentication and authorisation infrastructure is not complete. Projects are not described in detail.

Libraries will have to join efforts towards a global authentication and authorisation infrastructure and to integrate this into their applications. That way, they will improve services for their users who are remote from their home institutions, enable users to access new services faster, lessen user frustration with forgotten passwords, reduce time spent on administrative tasks and also reduce the burden of password management and enable security improvements.

This paper fulfils an identified need to speed up the development of a global authentication and authorisation infrastructure.