In spring 1988 the editors of the papers of George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and Benjamin Franklin were approached by classics scholar David Packard on behalf of the Packard Humanities Foundation with a proposal to produce a CD-ROM edition of the complete papers of each of the Founding Fathers. This electronic edition will supplement the published volumes, making the documents widely available to students and researchers at reasonable cost. We estimate that our CD-ROM edition of Washington's Papers will be substantially completed within the next two years and ready for publication. Within the next ten years or so, similar CD-ROM editions of the Franklin, Adams, Jefferson, and Madison papers also will be available. At the Library of Congress's session on technology, I would like to discuss not only the experience of the Washington Papers in producing the CD-ROM edition, but the impact technology has had on these major editorial projects. Already, we are editing our volumes with an eye to the material that will be readily available in the CD-ROM edition. The completed electronic edition will provide immense possibilities for the searching of documents for information in a way never possible before. The kind of technical innovations that are currently available and on the drawing board will soon revolutionize historical research and the production of historical documents. Unfortunately, much of this new technology is not being used in the planning stages of historical projects, simply because many historians are aware only in the vaguest way of its existence. At least two major new historical editing projects are considering microfilm editions, simply because they are not aware of the possibilities of electronic alternatives and the advantages of the new technology in terms of flexibility and research potential compared to microfilm. In fact, too many of us in history and literature are still at the stage of struggling with our PCs. There are many historical editorial projects in progress presently, and an equal number of literary projects. While the two fields have somewhat different approaches to textual editing, there are ways in which electronic technology can be of service to both.