diff --git a/README b/README
new file mode 100755
index 0000000..015203b
--- /dev/null
+++ b/README
@@ -0,0 +1,10 @@
+Master XSLT stylesheets for the INFO database authoring framework.
+
+To update:
+
+% cvs update
+% make
+
+Documents that use the framework depend on the master stylsheets, and so will automatically rebuild from scratch the next time they are built.
+
+Most of the real stylesheet code is in the modules directory.