This issue in the series of annual Specialist Periodical Reports on
Carbohydrate Chemistry heralds the introduction of a new camera￾ready format for the report. This radical change from the previous
printed issues has been made in an attempt to stem the rapidly
escalating costs of the report which have seriously threatened its
viability. There is also a very desirable saving in production
time, which we appreciate is another important feature governing
the value of these surveys, and we hope to make further improve￾ments in this respect with future issues. On the debit side, we
hope our readers will bear with any variability in presentation
between chapters, and in particular, with hand-drawn formulae
which were chosen primarily to save time. Comments and criticisms
would be appreciated since our aim is to provide what is most
wanted by the users of the report.
The arrangement of chapters follows that adopted in previous
reports; journals for 1981 available to us by February 1982 have
been abstracted.
We welcome Dr. R.H. Furneaux as a new member of our team of
reporters, and we would like to thank Dr. P. Gardam and Mrs. L.A.
Turrell at the Royal Society of Chemistry for their encouragement
and assistance in producing this report in its new format.