diff --git a/dev/README.md b/dev/README.md
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..cdbb82f0
--- /dev/null
+++ b/dev/README.md
@@ -0,0 +1,27 @@
+Building
+====================
+
+There are a number of ways to build the library:
+
+Directly with Make
+-------------------
+
+There is a non-windows makefile in the wrappers/SharedLibrary that can be used to make the library.
+
+
+With CMAKE
+-----------
+
+The platform independent cmake program can be used. In using cmake, CoolProp uses the standard procedure:
+
+1) Make a build directory and cd to build
+2) cmake ..
+3) make
+4) make 
+
+Although step 1 and 2 does depend on the OS, step 3 and 4 will depend on how the program is being built.
+If on windows the cmake gui can be used which will perform steps 1 and 2, if using visual studio then
+the build process will need to be run twice.
+
+Make needs to be called twice, the first make step will dynamically generate a number of files from the
+JSON fluid definitions - the second make run will actually generate the program.
\ No newline at end of file