This series is divided into three sub-series: a) general correspondence, primarily incoming but with including some copies of responses, arranged chronologically and covering the years 1963-2004; b) carbon copies of “out” correspondence (1971-1988) with some additional documentation, arranged chronologically; and c) correspondence by author, arranged alphabetically. A few of the responses in the first sub-series are duplicated in the “out” correspondence. The first two sub-series are inter-related and the correspondence in all three sub-series ranges widely over Professor Guillet’s activities as a professor and his own experimental and development work. There are also a few letters on personal matters scattered throughout the first sub-series.The correspondence arranged by author covers the years 1976 to 2002 and the seven correspondents – Bruce Balcom, Robert W. Billingsley, William Robert Bruce, Ramin Farnood, Joachim Klein, Michiel Kruijff, and Alastair North, range from colleagues and visiting professors to scientists involved with Professor Guillet’s research projects.

James Guillet registered in mathematics and physics in the Bachelor of Arts program at Victoria College in the autumn of 1944. In second year he switched to honours physics and chemistry, graduating in 1948. In addition to his core honours courses, he took religious knowledge for his first two years, followed by Greek and Roman history. His interest in the latter continued after his graduation with an extra course in 1948-1949. English, French and German (reading courses in French and German his last two years) and physical training rounded out his curriculum. The only extra-curricular activity documented in this series is the Alpha Phi chapter of Delta Kappa Epsilon Fraternity.The series begins with notebooks containing lectures, laboratory experiments and notes for his undergraduate courses. Guillet kept detailed and careful notes, recording the names of his lecturers, some of whose personal papers have not survived. In this category are Leopold Infeld and B.A. Griffiths (Applied Mathematics); Andrew Gordon and F. R. Lorriman (Chemistry); D. A.. F. Robinson, M. E. G. Waddell, and W. J. Webber (Mathematics); D. S. Ainslee, Colin Barnes and M. F. Crawford (Physics); and W. T. Brown (Religious knowledge/Greek and Roman history). Professors, whose personal papers are in the University Archives, include George F Wright (Chemistry) and Elizabeth Allin and John Satterley (Physics).The course notes are followed by a file on Delta Kappa Epsilon Fraternity and another of correspondence with camera suppliers while a research chemist with Eastman Kodak in Tennessee.In 1953 Guillet entered Cambridge University from which he received his doctorate in 1955. This series contains notebooks relating to laboratory projects carried out while studying under R. G. W. Norrish. The series ends with files on a conference Guillet gave on his research in France in 1954, a seminar at Vanderbilt University (1958), and employment at Eastman Kodak in Tennessee in 1959.

This series documents some of Professor Guillet’s activities at the University of Toronto, both as an administrator and as a lecturer. There are substantial gaps – most of his administrative files remain with the Department and his lecture and teaching material is very incomplete. The committee filesare more substantial but many committees are not represented. The arrangement is largely alphabetical.The series begins with files on his sabbatical leave, awards, and his visiting professorship at theUniversity of California at San Diego. These are followed by files on the Committee for HonoraryDegrees and correspondence and memoranda from the Department of Chemistry, including thehiring of laboratory technicians. There are only three files of course material and lecture notes,largely from the 1980s. The remaining files relate primarily to committee work: the InventionsFoundation Committee and the University inventions policy generally (1974-1998), the ‘OldScientific Instruments’ Committee (20001-2002), the Polymer and Colloid Chemistry Group (1989-1990), Presidential Advisory Committee on Supplementary Income and Related Activities (1972-1976), Post-doctoral Scholarly Exchange with China (1979-1983), and the Research Board’s PatentsCommittee Review Task Force (1976-1978). There is a single file on Professor Guillet’sadministrative activities at Scarborough College. The last file in the series is on the University’sScientific Development Committee (1961-1972).

Professor Guillet was highly respected and sought after by students and senior scientists alike, both in Canada and abroad. Over the years he supervised 28 PhD theses, 26 masters degrees and 50 post-doctoral fellows and research associates. Some arrived as part of exchange student programs with Dutch, German and Russian institutions. Some of the exchange programs were also for professors, especially those from the Soviet Union/Russia. Guillet’s students or post-doctoral fellows now hold academic positions in Canadian, American, British, Japanese, Polish and Singaporean universities and positions in industry in many countries. The emphasis in this series is on their activities at the University of Toronto, but there is also correspondence and associated material in files, especially at the post-doctoral level, of their earlier and subsequent academic and research work.The series begins with a file contain student registers and lists of students (1963-1993), followed by correspondence from students wishing to study under Professor Guillet and relating to fourth-year undergraduate students and summer research assistants. There is also correspondence with students regarding their theses reports (1973-1996), applications from students in China (1983-1990), and letters of reference for students and administrative and academic colleagues (1985-2002).The remaining files are grouped into the following categories: ‘undergraduates’, ‘exchange students’, ‘Masters students’, ‘PhD students’ and ‘post-doctoral fellows, research associates and visiting (including exchange) professors’. There is a also a final category of ‘demonstrators’, ‘research assistants’ and ‘research associates’. There are some files of general correspondence and files on individuals within each section are arranged alphabetically. Where students took both masters and doctoral degrees, the files are with the higher degree. Many of the students and fellows left their lab books with Professor Guillet. Those of only one student, Guojun Liu (now a senior professor at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario), as a doctoral candidate have been retained as a sampling (his masters notebooks were not kept). A few lab books relating to specific projects have also been retained; these are filed in Series 5 and 7. Files on individuals are arranged alphabetically within each section.The undergraduate files consist mostly of the final project reports, with some notes, progress reports and covering correspondence. The earliest exchange proposals were with Russia in the late 1960s; there is a file of correspondence, primarily with notes on research projects at the University of Toronto (1969-1990), notebooks, and then files on research projects of the Moscow Institute of Fine Chemical Technology. There are individual files for the Dutch exchange students and some for the German, along with a file of covering correspondence for the latter. The masters student files may contain correspondence, research notes and progress reports. Many of the doctoral student files also contain programs for oral examinations and thesis defence, and appraisals of theses. A few also contain drafts of papers co-authored with Professor Guillet.The correspondence in the graduate and post-doctoral files address a wide variety of issues, including those relating to of bringing students and post-doctoral fellows to the University of Toronto, research generally, and the specific problems associated with individual research projects. There are also some letters of reference. In addition to correspondence, the files on post-doctoral fellows contain research notes and reports. Some have research proposals, drafts of papers co-authored with Professor Guillet, and evaluations of the programs under which they came to the University of Toronto (for example, the special program for Chinese scholars). In addition to the usual material, the research notebook of one of Professor Guillet’s first post-doctoral fellows, Mitsura Koike from Japan (1964-1966), has been retained.

This series begins with grant applications submitted by Professor Guillet between 1976 and 1996, followed by correspondence and reports on the research projects they funded. Next are notes on research projects at the University of Toronto (1969-1990), notebooks and, especially, his ‘Ideas’ files with voluminous notes taken between 1965 and about 1995. After these there come files on research projects, arranged alphabetically by the name of the project. The series ends with files on projects carried out by Professor Guillet’s students, arranged alphabetically by the name of the student.The first grant application in the series is for a new drug delivery method for the controlled release of insulin Professor Guillet developed for the Canadian Diabetic Association in 1976-1977. The remainder is primarily to NSERC for research on various characteristics of and applications of polymers, including (after his appointment as Professor Emeritus) the relationship to solar energy, ultraviolet light and the remediation of chemical pollutants in ground water.Professor Guillet’s notes, notebooks and ‘Ideas’ files cover a wide range of research issues and ideas gleaned from his own research, from notes taken at conferences and in discussions with his colleagues, students, and other scientists. Some of Professor Guillet’s ideas are further explored in the research projects described in this series and in Series 7 to 10.Professor Guillet kept files on a number of research projects that contained notes and a variety of reports. One of the earliest of these at the University of Toronto was ebuillometry; Guillet’s research extended from the late 1960s to the mid-1990s. Other projects documented here include gamma-ray radiation, glassy polymers, inverse gas chromatography, photochemistry of fibre-forming polymers, photo-oxidation of polymers and silicone polishes, polymer flocculants, and solar energy.The remaining files in this series consist of research reports, with covering correspondence, carried out by students and post-doctoral fellows, research associates and visiting professors. Included are research notes and notebooks of two individuals mentioned in the previous series: Valery Kuleznev and Guojun Liu.

Professor Guillet’s patents were a natural outgrowth of his innovative research, his business acumen, and his determination to show to the world how basic research could lead to industrial innovation. During his lifetime he registered more than 100 patents and in 1975 he was given a medal and awarded the 1,000,000th Canadian patent number for his work in biodegradable plastics.This series begins with several general files on patent applications, the awarding of Canadian patent number 1,000,000, correspondence regarding patent renewals (with invoices) from two legal firms, and the abandoning by the firm Van Leer of patents relating to ecolyte bio-cyclic plastics. These files are followed by others, arranged alphabetically by title, of patent applications and patents registered by Professor Guillet over thirty years in Canada, the United States, Britain, Europe, Israel, Japan and South Africa. Most of the files relate to a half-dozen patents: advanced frost-free and growth exchange compositions, a graft polymerization process, improved methods for sequencing DNA, a molecular probe apparatus, photochemical reactions for commercial synthesis, converting paper residues to fertilizers (“fertile money”), polymeric flocculants, the production of hydrogen peroxide, the sequencing of nucleic acids, and the labelling of polymers and the sequencing of nucleic acids.

Throughout his career, Professor Guillet acted as a consultant on research and technology to a number of companies and also appeared as an expert witness in court cases. At the same time, he founded and was actively involved with running three small Canadian high-technology companies: EcoPlastics Limited, Medipro Sciences Limited, and Solarchem Corporation. The series begins with a general file on consulting jobs, followed by files on companies to which he acted as a consultant,then those he founded (which begin in midway through box 041); each section is arranged in alphabetical order. The files contain correspondence, memoranda, notes, research notes and reports.Of the major companies for which Professor Guillet acted as a consultant, only IOPTEX Research Inc. is missing from this series. The most substantial files are on two companies, AlbchemIndustries Ltd. and the Allied Chemical Company. Guillet’s research for the former was the development of technology related to the manufacture of hydrogen peroxide centring on a proprietary polymer for which he had submitted a patent application in the United States (see box 036). Several doctoral students, particularly David Gravett, assisted him in this project; his notebooks and the progress reports are with the files. With the Allied Chemical Company, Guillet was acting in his capacity as president of Ecoplastics and worked on two projects – the development of commercial photoresists for deep ultraviolet lithography and Allied tar sands flocculent program.The earliest company for which Professor Guillet acted as a consultant was the Glidden Company of Canada, with which he was associated for twenty years. Other clients (the list is not exhaustive) included oil companies Esso/Imperial Oil/Exxon, British Petroleum, Mobil Oil, and Standard Oil; Amersham Pharmacia Biotech, a Swedish company interested in Guillet’s work on DNA sequencing; G-Nano LLC, which sought Guillet’s expertise in cross-linked nano-particle technology; the Institute for Chemical Science and Technology, seeking expertise in the tracing of chemical pollutants; Johnson & Johnson (surface coating of spectacle lenses); Pan-Tec Inc., a manufacturer of composite tiles; Pheromone Sciences Ltd. (mammalian pheromones); Primaxis Technology Ventures Inc., which was interested in the Polytrace technology that Guillet had developed; and Webb Ocular Prosthetics which specialized in artificial eyes. There is correspondence with Professor Guillet’s former employer, Tennessee Eastman Company, with which he maintained an association for many years after he joined the University of Toronto.The files on the companies Professor Guillet founded underline the problems they faced in finding sufficient financial backing to develop their ideas and market their products. EcoPlastics Limited was eventually taken over by American Eco Corporation and ecolyte degradable plastics were sold worldwide by Ecolyte Atlantic Inc. of Baltimore, Maryland under licence from EcoPlastics. The files on this company contain correspondence, notes, minutes, press coverage, reports and documents relating to investments by the Ahed Investors Syndicate. By the time Medipro Sciences Limited was sold to Pharma Patch PLC in 1993, it had achieved some successes in developing the medical applications of plastic materials. Two projects are documented here: a contract to develop new delivery systems for contraceptive steroids for the World Health Organization, and the development of wound dressings for burn casualties. The single file on Solarchem contains correspondence, financial proposals and contracts about Professor Guillet’s inventions in solar chemistry.The series ends with two other companies of which Professor Guillet was involved, Seabreeze Plastics, of which he was a director, and Syntheria Pharmaceuticals, that experimented with liquid dressings.

The files in this series are related primarily to conferences that Professor Guillet attended, editorial boards on which he sat, and trips as a visiting academic to Japan (1997 and 1999), Russia (1966) and the United Kingdom (1991 and 1993). There are, in addition, files on three groups in which he played an active role: the Science and Media Group, University of Winnipeg/CIDA Project (which studied the application of solar systems to water treatment in Egypt), and the United Church of Canada’s Task Group on Nuclear Energy. There is also a file on ‘Science policy in Canada’. The arrangement is alphabetical.The conference files reflect Professor Guillet’s wide intellectual interests. He seldom missed the annual conference of the Canadian Society of Chemistry; some of the later ones are documented here. Several conferences focus on polymers – the Canadian High Polymer Forums (1964, 1965, and 1998), the Gordon Conferences (including the chemistry and physics of coatings and films), the High Polymer Research Group conferences in England, and the IUPAC (International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry) World Polymer Congress in 1998 and 2000. Guillet’s visit to Russian polymer institutes in 1966 was a factor in bringing Valery Kuleznev and Russian students to Toronto. In Japan, in 1997, he attended the 6th Society of Polymer Science, Japan International Polymer Conference, and in 1999 he was honoured with that Society’s International Award. Other conference files cover biodegradable plastics, electron beam radiation, inverse gas chromatography, and solar energy storage. In 1997 Guillet participated in the IUPAC General Assembly in Geneva and then delivered the plenary lecture at its conference in Krakow, Poland.The files contain correspondence, memoranda, minutes, notes, programmes, reports, and drafts of addresses.

Professor Guillet’s publications span fifty years, from 1954 to 2005. His curriculum vitae lists 282 scientific papers and chapters of books, and two book published by 2002. More papers have appeared since. He first came to the attention of the public internationally in 1970 when Time Magazine announced that he had filed application for four basic patents on biodegradable plastics. His Polymers and Ecological Problems, an edited volume of papers from a symposium on the subject, appeared in 1973. His Polymer Photophysics and Photochemistry (1985) is still a standard reference. About fifty of his publications are missing from this series; the largest gap appears at the beginning of his career – papers #1 and 5-23 (1954, 1960-1967). Some papers appeared with Guillet as the sole author but most were the result of collaborative research with his students, post-doctoral fellows and others in his discipline.Many of Professor Guillet’s papers were published in series as a part of ongoing research into specific attributes of polymers. Often two papers would appear (the first in 1955) on a particular problem, but sometimes the number of papers would be ten or more. Nineteen were published on the ‘photochemistry of ketone polymers’ between 1968 and 1985, while twenty-seven in the series ‘studies of the antenna effect in polymer molecules’, appeared between 1982 and 2002. Two other papers in this series were not published but are with the unpublished manuscripts.The files contain any to all of the following: drafts of articles, offprints, covering correspondence, contracts and related documents, notes, reviewers’ comments, royalty statements, and photographs. The arrangement is chronological, with the published papers appearing first, followed by sixteen papers that were either not submitted or not accepted for publication. The files of unpublished manuscripts, in particular, contain covering notes by Susan Arbuckle, Professor Guillet’s secretary.

The files in this series consist of Professor Guillet’s surviving addresses (note the gaps) of a professional nature and nearly all relating to polymers. There are several files of notes and abstracts for these addresses, dated and undated, followed by addresses arranged chronologically. Few are accompanied by covering letters; for these and related correspondence, the researcher is directed primarily to Series 1. Some addresses can also be found in the conference files in Series 8. There are also a few lectures on cassette tapes. These date from about 1979 to 1996 and include Guillet’s Canadian Institute lecture in 1990 as well as lectures given at international conferences in Anaheim California, Dallas Texas, Prague, Stockholm, Seoul and Tokyo.Professor Guillet was in great demand as a public speaker and thus had to turn down many invitations. But he still found time from his busy schedule to speak to groups other than professional ones, including students and community organizations. Such addresses are not represented in this series, but information about them can be gleaned from the correspondence in Series 1.

Formal portraits, publicity prints and snapshots documenting Professor Guillet’s research. In particular there are prints showing Professor Guillet in his lab with Arthur Stein and Andjelka Lavoie, working with the molecular probe apparatus in 1969. This probe was used to study the glass transition of polypropylene.