This volume is a collection of papers presented to Professor Tom Barnard by former students, colleagues and friends to mark thirty-two years of teaching and research in micropalaeontology at University College London. This period represents the major part of Tom Barnard's career with microfossils, which actually began rather earlier, but in 1949 his first postgraduate students were registered. Since then some 150 students have worked for higher degrees studying foraminifera, ostracods, calcareous nannofossils, dino­ of Research flagellates and palynomorphs, in company with a series Assistants and Visiting Scientists. The nature of micropalaeontology at 'UC' under Tom Barnard has always been unashamedly biostratigraphical. As a result many students have entered and continue to enter the petroleum industry, not least of all because their mentor has always had a pragmatic view of academic research and its direction. Despite this emphasis, with a particular attention to Mesozoic foraminifera, a major investigation of Recent Caribbean foraminiferal faunas has been carried out and most recently MSc classes have worked with material from the continental shelf of southern Africa. Work with Mesozoic ostracods was initiated in 1956 and during the past decade a growing number of students have concentrated on calcareous nannofossils. A book sum­ marising the results of biostratigraphical work with nannofossils is at present in the press (Lord, A. R. (ed. ) A stratigraphical index of calcareous nanno­ fossils. Chichester: Ellis Horwood).