This collection of trade literature consists of technical information, manufacturing and design texts, and marketing materials dating from the 1930s to 1997.

Colin Williamson is a British technologist in the polymer raw material and additives sectors. An authority on the manufacture and development of early plastics, he is deeply involved in the conservation issues of plastics objects in museum collections. Williamson joined the plastics industry in 1969 as a colorist and additives specialist. In 1971 he began collecting early plastics, and rescued many archival records of companies who were active in the plastics and rubber industries. Imperial Chemical Industries, Limited (ICI) was one of the largest British manufacturers of chemicals, plastics, paints, pharmaceuticals, and specialty products in the twentieth century. The company was formed by the merger of Brunner Mond, Nobel Explosives, the United Alkali Company, and British Dyestuffs Corporation in 1926, and dissolved in 2008 when it was acquired by AkzoNobel. Contemporaries with companies such as Du Pont and IG Farben, ICI was one of the largest single producers of thermoplastics materials in the world for an extended period of its existence. ICI was also active in the development of plastics technologies and production methods, contributing processes such as the sandwich mold.

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