The Field Museum, Harvard University, Marine Biological Laboratory (Woods Hole), Smithsonian Institution, and Biodiversity Heritage Library have announced a new global effort, Encyclopedia of Life. The aim of the project is to document all 1.8 million named species of animals, plants, and other forms of life on Earth.

The benefit is that for the first time in history everyone, from scientists to regular citizens, would have multimedia access to this database.

"The Encyclopedia of Life will provide valuable biodiversity and conservation information to anyone, anywhere, at any time," said Dr. James Edwards, currently Executive Secretary of the Global Biodiversity Information Facility who today was officially named Executive Director of the Encyclopedia of Life. "Through collaboration, we all can increase our appreciation of the immense variety of life, the challenges to it, and ways to conserve biodiversity. The Encyclopedia of Life will ultimately make high-quality, well-organized information available on an unprecedented level. Even five years ago, we could not create such a resource, but advances in technology for searching, annotating, and visualizing information now permit us, indeed mandate us to build the Encyclopedia of Life."

Also, users will have the possibility to personalize the learning experience through its "my eol" feature. Encyclopedia of Life will be available in all major languages and will connect scientific communities concerned with ants to apples to zebras. www.eol.org will provide written information and, when available, photographs, video, sound, location maps, and other multimedia information on each species.

The effort is spurred by a $10 million grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and $2.5 million from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.