diff --git a/docs/harfbuzz-docs.xml b/docs/harfbuzz-docs.xml
index 60ff8e2..a7efbf8 100644
--- a/docs/harfbuzz-docs.xml
+++ b/docs/harfbuzz-docs.xml
@@ -8,10 +8,39 @@
   <bookinfo>
     <title>HarfBuzz Manual</title>
     <releaseinfo>
-      for HarfBuzz &version;.
+      This document is for HarfBuzz &version;.
       <!--The latest version of this documentation can be found on-line at
       <ulink role="online-location" url="http://[SERVER]/libharfbuzz/index.html">http://[SERVER]/libharfbuzz/</ulink>.-->
     </releaseinfo>
+    <abstract>
+      <title>HarfBuzz</title>
+      <graphic fileref="HarfBuzz.png" format="PNG" align="center"/>
+      <para>
+        HarfBuzz is an <ulink url="http://www.microsoft.com/typography/otspec/">OpenType</ulink>
+        text shaping engine.
+      </para>
+      <para>
+        The current HarfBuzz codebase, formerly known as harfbuzz-ng, is
+        versioned 1.x.x and is stable and under active maintenance. This is
+        what is used in latest versions of Firefox, GNOME, ChromeOS, Chrome,
+        LibreOffice, XeTeX, Android, and KDE, among other places. The canonical
+        source tree is available
+        <ulink url="http://cgit.freedesktop.org/harfbuzz/">here</ulink>.
+        Also available on
+        <ulink url="https://github.com/behdad/harfbuzz">github</ulink>.
+        See below for release tarballs.
+      </para>
+      <para>
+        The old HarfBuzz codebase, these days known as harfbuzz-old, was
+        derived from <ulink url="http://freetype.org/">FreeType</ulink>,
+        <ulink url="http://pango.org/">Pango</ulink>, and
+        <ulink url="http://qt-project.org/">Qt</ulink> and is available
+        <ulink url="http://cgit.freedesktop.org/harfbuzz.old/">here</ulink>.
+        It is not actively developed or maintained, and is extremely buggy. All
+        users are encouraged to switch over to the new HarfBuzz as soon as
+        possible.  There are no release tarballs of old HarfBuzz whatsoever.
+      </para>
+    </abstract>
   </bookinfo>
 
   <part>