The adsorption of the surfactant n-nonyl-beta-D-glucopyranoside at the air-water interface after injection of the surfactant into the subphase was studied by infrared reflection absorption spectroscopy. In the first part, we investigated the equilibrium adsorption of n-nonyl-beta-D-glucopyranoside and the Gibbs adsorption isotherm was measured by applying the film balance technique. In the second part, the adsorption kinetics was followed by changes in the surface pressure and in the intensities of the OH band, which is related to the layer thickness, and the CH2 antisymmetric stretching vibrational band. During an induction period, when the molecules are still highly diluted and the surface pressure is low, they are oriented parallel to the air-water interface. IR band simulations for the CH2 antisymmetric stretching vibrational band support the idea of horizontally oriented molecules at the air-water interface. Later on, when more molecules are adsorbed to the air-water interface, they suddenly rearrange to an upright orientation as indicated by changes of the OH and the CH2 bands. The observations are discussed in comparison to results obtained for the adsorption kinetics of n-decyl-beta-D-maltopyranoside, n-dodecyl-beta-D-maltopyranoside, and sodium dodecyl sulfate.