diff --git a/base/serial/README.serial b/base/serial/README.serial
index 67f15b43..478db43d 100644
--- a/base/serial/README.serial
+++ b/base/serial/README.serial
@@ -16,3 +16,44 @@ Craig C. Douglas  na.bank@na-net.ornl.gov and
 na.cdouglas@na-net.ornl.gov;  we wrapped  it in a Fortran 95 interface
 with dynamic memory allocation. 
 
+
+
+How do you add a new storage format? Here is your checklist. 
+1.  You have to invent a name for it, a name that can fit into 3
+    letters.
+2.  You have to decide whether you need fields into INFOA() for it, and
+    invent their names/positions accordingly.
+3.  You have to add an estimate (as good as possible) for the memory
+    occupation into psb_cest.
+4.  You have to be able to generate it. For our purposes, the minimum
+    effort that still meets the requirements is the ability to convert
+    to/from COOrdinate; the relevant code (properly encapsulated in
+    subroutines) should be added into psb_Xcsdp; you can take Xcocr as
+    the model. You may or may not be able to do it "in place";
+    ipcoo2csr & friends do just that; if you can, please add it because
+    it may come in handy.
+5.  You have to be able to convert it back to COOrdinate. This is
+    usually not hard, because the code that does the MV multiply is
+    already (maybe implicitly) walking through the coefficients while
+    keeping track of both row and column index, thus it suffices to
+    copy them as you meet them, and then call psb_fixcoo (which sorts
+    and compacts the output) on the result. 
+6.  You have to embed the MV and SV codes in the infrastructure; this
+    is done first in the xSWMM and xSWSM routines that do a select on
+    the FIDA value. Below this level you're free to do as you please. 
+7.  You have to extend the output capability of psb_Xcsprt. Again this
+    is  easy for the same reasons as in 4. 
+8.  You have to extend psb_Xcsrws for DIAG preconditioner. 
+9.  Provide an UPDATE functionality, and add it to psb_update_mod;
+    currently JAD is out of this. 
+10. You have to provide the query facilities used in PSB_XSPINFO
+    (included  in base/modules/psb_spmat_type). 
+11. You have to provide the functionality to extract a block of
+    rows. This is used in the GETBLK/GETROW/CLIP chain (TO BE
+    REVISED). GETROW is (all that is) used by the ILU factorization. 
+12. You have to provide the GETDIAG functionality. 
+13. You have to provide the functionality to NEIGH. 
+    WATCH OUT: THIS COULD BE CHANGED TO USE GETROW!!!!
+14. RWEXTD: what do we do here? Should we switch to/from COO????? 
+
+Is this complete? I sure hope so.... 
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