American Institute of Biological Sciences (AIBS)
1444 I (Eye) Street NW, Suite 200
Washington, DC 20005
Phone: (202) 628-1500
http://www.aibs.org/
For Immediate Release
28 June 2007
For more information, contact:
Richard T. O'Grady, AIBS Executive Director
rogrady@aibs.org; 202-628-1500 x 258 Encyclopedia of Life will catalog all living organisms
on Earth
Washington, DC. Prominent scientists around the World
announced the launch of an epic effort to catalog the 1.8
million known species of plants, animals, and other forms of
life on our planet, the Encyclopedia of Life. This
unprecedented effort utilizes the significant advances in
internet technologies to make the vast body of information and
multi-media resources about life on Earth available to
scientists, students, and the general public online. Biologist
E.O. Wilson, who originally conceived this project summarized
the project: “Imagine an electronic page for each species of
organism on Earth, available everywhere by single access on
command.”
“The Encyclopedia of Life will provide valuable
biodiversity and conservation information to anyone, anywhere,
at any time,” said Dr. James Edwards, the 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.”
The project has brought together a variety of distinguished
organizations and eminent scientists as partners. The American
Institute of Biological Sciences is a member of the EOL
Institutional Council, which includes The American Museum of
Natural History and the World Conservation Union among its
council members.
For more information about the Encyclopedia of Life, see
http://www.eol.org/home.html
