diff --git a/ChangeLog b/ChangeLog
index f528bdd730ac16d6b94316a4aa36bbdf946a565c..9c5db9396e51169f5d1b87c27cca624a7e2ed804 100644
--- a/ChangeLog
+++ b/ChangeLog
@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
-Fri Jun 19 2020 Piotr Balcer <piotr.balcer@intel.com>
+Fri Jul 3 2020 Piotr Balcer <piotr.balcer@intel.com>
 
-	* Version 1.9-rc1
+	* Version 1.9
 
 	This release:
 	- Switches the default instruction set for memcpy, memmove and memset
@@ -14,6 +14,7 @@ Fri Jun 19 2020 Piotr Balcer <piotr.balcer@intel.com>
 	transactions.
 	- Improves performance of pool creation on Windows by avoiding expensive
 	physical page allocation during file allocation.
+	- Stabilizes support for ppc64.
 
 	Other changes:
 	- pmem: mem[cpy|set] optimization when eADR is available
diff --git a/GIT_VERSION b/GIT_VERSION
deleted file mode 100644
index 6002f22fa25c9e2fcd8f2467681ebd2aa29cb3c6..0000000000000000000000000000000000000000
--- a/GIT_VERSION
+++ /dev/null
@@ -1 +0,0 @@
-$Format:%h$
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index ed4a3157a57ecba4efa528de9c81c0ee6220cd21..4ff16896efee0ab885c8d3f47c18f42723db2b80 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -166,7 +166,7 @@ To build from source, clone this tree:
 
 For a stable version, checkout a [release tag](https://github.com/pmem/pmdk/releases) as follows. Otherwise skip this step to build the latest development release.
 ```
-	$ git checkout tags/1.8
+	$ git checkout tags/1.9
 ```
 
 Once the build system is setup, the Persistent Memory Development Kit is built using the `make` command at the top level:
diff --git a/VERSION b/VERSION
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000..2e0e38c63a62a412640833b517f8f2a46418cd27
--- /dev/null
+++ b/VERSION
@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+1.9