Encyclopedia of Life Launched

A group of academic and non-profit institutions—including Harvard University, the Smithsonian Institution, and the MacArthur Foundation—has announced the launch of a major online peer-reviewed database of species.

The Encyclopedia of Life (EOL), a project long supported by Harvard's Pellegrino University Professor Edward O. Wilson, aims to compile information on over 1.8 million species, according to the group's Web site, which currently displays only a few sample entries.

According to Laura Cinnamon, a spokeswoman for the project, the EOL will be universally accessible free of charge.

“The point is to make it as accessible as possible to anyone who wants to use it,” Cinnamon said.

A press release from the EOL estimates a completion time of 10 years.

The concept behind the encyclopedia resembles that of WikiSpecies, an existing taxonomy database administered by the Wikimedia Foundation, which also runs the open-source database Wikipedia. However, unlike WikiSpecies, the new encyclopedia will be peer-reviewed by experts, according to a draft description of the Encyclopedia.

The EOL Web site lists the Wikimedia Foundation as a member of its "Institutional Council" and cites Wikimedia's open-source portals as inspiration for the project.

"Wikipedia… gave us confidence that our tasks are manageable with current technology and social behaviour," the EOL Web site reads.

The press release notes a $10 million grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and $2.5 million grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, and the draft description estimates EOL's five-year operating budget at $40 million.

—Staff writer Clifford M. Marks can be reached at cmarks@fas.harvard.edu.
—Staff writer Nicholas K. Tabor can be reached at ntabor@fas.harvard.edu.