diff --git a/INSTALL b/INSTALL
index 94a92c0..fdd17d5 100644
--- a/INSTALL
+++ b/INSTALL
@@ -11,13 +11,14 @@ First, install the prerequisites:
  * simplejson 1.3
  * pytz 2006p
  * Python Imaging Library 1.1
+ * Python Universal Encoding Detector 1.0
 
 In Debian GNU/Linux, you can issue the following command to install these
 packages:
 
   apt-get install python2.4 python-cherrypy postgresql-8.1 \
           postgresql-contrib-8.1 python-psycopg2 python-simplejson \
-          python-tz python-imaging
+          python-tz python-imaging python-chardet
 
 
 database setup
diff --git a/NEWS b/NEWS
index 66500c4..6962a70 100644
--- a/NEWS
+++ b/NEWS
@@ -1,3 +1,9 @@
+1.4.25: August 11, 2008:
+ * Fixed a bug in which the character encoding of uploaded CSV files was not
+   properly detected and used to decode the file. Note that this fix
+   introduces a new dependency: http://chardet.feedparser.org/ found in the
+   python-chardet package.
+
 1.4.24: August 11, 2008:
  * Added a light gray line under note title text to make it clearer that it's
    a title as opposed to just bold text.
diff --git a/controller/Files.py b/controller/Files.py
index 52a850f..19f104b 100644
--- a/controller/Files.py
+++ b/controller/Files.py
@@ -8,6 +8,7 @@ import cherrypy
 from PIL import Image
 from cStringIO import StringIO
 from threading import Lock, Event
+from chardet.universaldetector import UniversalDetector
 from Expose import expose
 from Validate import validate, Valid_int, Valid_bool, Validation_error
 from Database import Valid_id, end_transaction
@@ -786,7 +787,7 @@ class Files( object ):
     @return: rows of data from the parsed file. each row is a list of elements
     @raise Parse_error: there was an error in parsing the given file
     """
-    APPROX_SNIFF_SAMPLE_SIZE_BYTES = 1024 * 1024
+    APPROX_SNIFF_SAMPLE_SIZE_BYTES = 1024 * 50
 
     try:
       import csv
@@ -800,6 +801,15 @@ class Files( object ):
 
       has_header = sniffer.has_header( sniff_sample )
 
+      # attempt to determine the file's character encoding
+      detector = UniversalDetector()
+      for line in lines:
+        detector.feed( line )
+        if detector.done: break
+
+      detector.close()
+      encoding = detector.result.get( "encoding" )
+
       table_file.seek( 0 )
       reader = csv.reader( table_file )
 
@@ -820,7 +830,7 @@ class Files( object ):
         else:
           expected_row_length = current_row_length
 
-        yield row
+        yield [ element.decode( encoding ) for element in row ]
     except ( csv.Error, IOError, TypeError ):
       raise Parse_error()
 
diff --git a/static/js/Wiki.js b/static/js/Wiki.js
index 9e130a4..63e3d17 100644
--- a/static/js/Wiki.js
+++ b/static/js/Wiki.js
@@ -2247,7 +2247,8 @@ Wiki.prototype.display_import_notebook = function ( result ) {
 
   var div = createDOM( "div", {},
     createDOM( "p", {}, "Almost done. I just need a little information about your file before I can complete the import and create a new notebook." ),
-    form
+    form,
+    createDOM( "p", {}, "Once you begin the import, it may take several seconds to complete." )
   );
   
   this.create_editor( "import", "<h3>import a notebook</h3>" + div.innerHTML, undefined, undefined, undefined, false, true, true, undefined );