Understanding cooperative phenomena far from equilibrium is one of fascinating challenges of
present-day many-body physics. Glassy behaviour and the physical ageing process of such
materials are paradigmatic examples. The present volume primarily intended as introduction and
reference for postgraduate students and nonspecialist researchers from related fields collects
six extensive lectures addressing selected experimental and theoretical issues in the field of
glassy systems. Lecture 1 gives an introduction and overview of the time-dependent behaviour of
magnetic spin glasses. Lecture 2 is devoted to an in-depth discussion on the nature of the
thermal glass-transition in structural glasses. Lecture 3 examines the glassy behaviour of
granular systems. Lecture 4 gives a thorough introduction to the techniques and applications of
Monte-Carlo simulations and the analysis of the resulting data through scaling methods. Lecture
5 introduces the zero-range-process concept as simple but subtle model to describe a range of
static and dynamic properties of glassy systems. Lecture 6 shows how familiar RG methods for
equilibrium systems can be extended to systems far from equilibrium. TOC:Introduction.- Ageing
Rejuvenation and Memory: the Example of Spin Glasses.- About the Nature of the Structural Glass
Transition: an Experimental Approach.- Glassy Behaviours in a-Thermal Systems the Case of
Granular Media.- Introduction to Simulation Techniques.- From Urn Models to Zero-Range
Processors: Statics and Dynamics.- Field-Theory Approaches to Nonequlibrium Dynamics.
