The Archivo General de Indias is operating a massive project to preserve and make accessible the contents of the 45 million documents and 7,000 maps and blueprints comprising the written heritage of Spain's 400 years in power in the Americas. The current objective is to scan about 10 percent of the archive (or about 8 million images) in preparation for the 1992 Seville World's Fair and the Columbus quincentenary. The archive was established by Carlos III in 1785 to collect in one place all documents associated with the Spanish colonization of the Americas, and documents date from the 15th through the 19th centuries, inclusive. It is expected that the King of Spain, who is very interested in the project, will officially open the "electronic archive" at the beginning of the quincentenary celebrations. This report provides information on the progress of the project; support being provided by the Ministry of Culture, IBM Spain, the Foundation Areces, and the Archivo itself; the bibliographic database; selection criteria; and the components of the system, i.e., an image database, a bibliographic database, and a management database linked together by an IBM token-ring local area network (LAN). The scanning of images and workstation access are also described. The record structure of the bibliographic database and examples of forms completed by archivists are appended. (Author/MAB)