On April 7-9, 2000, ten people[1] representing a variety of disciplines convened in Burlington, Vermont, to discuss ways to improve and standardize intellectual access to electronically published historical documents. The meeting, sponsored by the University of Vermont and funded by a grant from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC), focused on identifying issues for study and describing research opportunities, methods, projects, and collaborators for projects that will contribute to an intellectual framework or set of editorial guidelines for electronic publication of historical documents in a way that assures effective intellectual access.