During the year, 162 papers have been published in the 12 monthly parts of volumes 241–243. The December issue (Volume 243, part 4) was the last number of the Journal to be published by Oxford University Press, and Assistant Editor Angela Stroud left at the end of the year. She had copy-edited manuscripts for the Journal for more than 10 years, and I would like to express my personal thanks to her, as I am sure would all authors, for her painstaking and faultless work. From January 1998 the Journal is being published by Cambridge University Press and I hope that all subscribers approve of the new format.