Tech Shout!

A number of the world’s leading scientific communities have announced the launch of a global effort to document each and every one of the 1.8 million named species belonging to the animal and plant life forms in Earth. This project is called the ‘Encyclopedia of Life’, and will offer scientists, students and citizens multimedia access to all known living species.

Some of the known institutions that have joined hands for the ‘Encyclopedia of Life’ project include The Field Museum, Harvard University, Marine Biological Laboratory (Woods Hole), Smithsonian Institution, and Biodiversity Heritage Library.

The Missouri Botanical Garden has become a full partner for the Encyclopedia of Life project. This week, discussions will commence with the leaders of the new Atlas od Living Australia.

The Encyclopedia of Life is also accepting initial membership of its Institutional Council, which spans the globe. There will also be an international advisory board of distinguished individuals, who will guide the project.

Over the next 10 years, the Encyclopedia of Life will create Internet pages for all 1.8 million species. The pages will be available at www.eol.org, and will provide written information, photographs, video, sound, location, maps,a nd other multimedia information on each species.

“For more than 250 years, scientists have catalogued life, and our traditional catalogues have become unwieldy,” said Ralph E. Gomory, President of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. “The Encyclopedia of Life will provide the citizens of the world a ‘macroscope’ of almost unimaginable power to find and create understanding of biodiversity across the globe. It will enable us to map and discover things so numerous or vast they overwhelm our normal vision.”

Ultimately, the Encyclopedia of Life will provide users the opportunity to personalize the learning experience through its “my eol” feature. The site can be made available in all major languages and will connect scientific communities concerned with ants to apples to zebras.

As part of its work, the Encyclopedia of Life will collaborate and partner with a wide range of organizations, individuals, and experts to help strengthen the Encyclopedia and its impact on communities throughout the world.