Syracuse University Library's Plastics Collection is a great source of information on all things plastic from the late 1800s to the present. Many objects in the collection have patent references.
I'm the librarian for research services in the Engineering and Science Library at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario. I've been working with patent information since 1991, including seven years at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. I believe that the dissemination of patent information is a public good and should be promoted, especially in the education of science and engineering students.