The world's leading scientific institutions have come together to announce the launch of the Encyclopedia of Life (EOL), a global effort to document the nearly 1.8-million named species on Planet Earth.

This initiative will for the first time in history, enable scientists, students, and citizens have multimedia access to all known living species such as animals, plants, and other forms of life, as well as those that are just discovered.

The project worth $12.5-million is being jointly initiated by the Field Museum, Harvard University, Marine Biological Laboratory, Smithsonian Institution, and Biodiversity Heritage Library.

According to Dr James Edwards, Executive Director of the Encyclopedia of Life (EOL), "The EOL will provide valuable bio-diversity and conservation information to anyone, anywhere, at any time. It 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 EOL."

The plan is to complete the project in the next decade, and as such, include further classification of the millions of species yet to be discovered. The pages, housed at www.eol.org, will provide written information, photographs, video, sound, location maps, and other multimedia information on each species.

Ralph E Gomory, President of the Alfred P Sloan Foundation, believes that EOL will provide citizens of the world a 'macroscope' of almost unimaginable power to find and create understanding of bio-diversity across the globe.

While initial work will emphasize species of animals, plants, and fungi, the design can be extended to encompass microbial life. To provide depth to the portal page for each species, scanned and digitized pages of scientific literature will be offered for detailed knowledge.

In addition, EOL will provide users an opportunity to personalize the learning experience through its "my eol" feature. There are plans to make the site available in all major languages, and connect scientific communities concerned with ants to Apples to Zebras.

Jonathan F Fanton, President of the John D and Catherine T MacArthur Foundation, said, "The Encyclopedia of Life will be a vital tool for scientists, researchers, and educators across the globe, providing easy access to the latest and best information on all known species. Technology is allowing Science to grasp the immense complexity of life on this planet. Sharing what we know, we can protect Earth's bio-diversity, and better conserve our natural heritage."