We give elementary derivations of several classical and some new summation and transformation formulae for bilateral basic hypergeometric series. For motivation, we review our previous simple proof (Proc. Amer. Math. Soc. 130 (2002), 1103-1111) of Bailey's very-wellpoised 6 ψ 6 summation. Using a similar but different method, we now give elementary derivations of some transformations for bilateral basic hypergeometric series. In particular, these include M. Jackson's very-well-poised 8 ψ 8 transformation, a very-well-poised 10 ψ 10 transformation, by induction, Slater's general transformation for very-well-poised 2r ψ 2r series, and Slater's transformation for general r ψr series. Finally, we derive some new transformations for bilateral basic hypergeometric series of a specific type.
Mathematics Subject Classification (2000). Primary 33D15.