diff --git a/RELEASE.txt b/RELEASE.txt
index 87334d74..9fcc6d1c 100644
--- a/RELEASE.txt
+++ b/RELEASE.txt
@@ -3,7 +3,10 @@ How to make a new release of ``skimage``
 
 - Update release notes.
 - Update the version number in setup.py and commit
-- Update the docs and api, push upstream using "make gh-pages"
+- Update the docs:
+  - Edit ``doc/_source/_static/docversions.js``
+  - Build a clean version of the docs with ``rm build -rf; make html``.
+  - Push upstream using "make gh-pages"
 - Add the version number as a tag in git::
 
   git tag v0.5
@@ -21,5 +24,5 @@ How to make a new release of ``skimage``
 
 - Update the web frontpage.
   The webpage is kept in a separate repo: scikits-image-web
-- Post release notes on mailing lists.
 
+- Post release notes on mailing lists, blog, G+, etc.
diff --git a/doc/source/_static/docversions.js b/doc/source/_static/docversions.js
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..5570c4ef
--- /dev/null
+++ b/doc/source/_static/docversions.js
@@ -0,0 +1,12 @@
+function insert_version_links() {
+    var labels = ['dev', '0.4', '0.3'];
+
+    document.write('<ul class="versions">\n');
+
+    for (i = 0; i < labels.length; i++){
+        document.write('<li> <a href="URL">skimage VERSION</a> </li>\n'
+                        .replace('VERSION', labels[i])
+                        .replace('URL', 'http://scikits-image.org/docs/' + labels[i]));
+    }
+    document.write('</ul>\n');
+}
diff --git a/doc/source/_templates/versions.html b/doc/source/_templates/versions.html
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..f3ab452f
--- /dev/null
+++ b/doc/source/_templates/versions.html
@@ -0,0 +1,10 @@
+{%- block versions %}
+
+  <h3>Version</h3>
+
+    <script type="text/javascript" src="/docs/dev/_static/docversions.js"></script>
+    <script type="text/javascript">
+      insert_version_links();
+    </script>
+
+{%- endblock %}
diff --git a/doc/source/conf.py b/doc/source/conf.py
index 6d5efbe1..5bc957ba 100644
--- a/doc/source/conf.py
+++ b/doc/source/conf.py
@@ -150,7 +150,13 @@ html_static_path = ['_static']
 #html_use_smartypants = True
 
 # Custom sidebar templates, maps document names to template names.
-#html_sidebars = {}
+html_sidebars = {
+   '**': ['localtoc.html',
+          'relations.html',
+          'sourcelink.html',
+          'versions.html',
+          'searchbox.html'],
+}
 
 # Additional templates that should be rendered to pages, maps page names to
 # template names.