Four isomeric sugar methylglycosides (alpha- and beta-D-gluco- and galactopyranosides) were evaluated as rubidium cation coordination adducts in the gas phase using variable-wavelength multiple-photon dissociation in the range from 2750 to 3750 cm(-1). The adducts dissociated following photon absorption to yield neutral sugars and the rubidium cation, resulting in infrared "action" spectra. Well-resolved hydroxyl stretching bands clearly differentiate stereoisomers that vary solely in their asymmetry at single carbons. Density functional theory calculations of the lowest-energy gas-phase complexes indicate that rubidium coordinates with lone pairs of oxygen atoms as either bi- or tridentate complexes and that more than one positional coordination isomer could adequately account for most of the O-H stretch frequencies observed for each methylglycoside.