Encyclopedia of Life

Encyclopedia of Life (EOL)

Written on July 26, 2009 – 6:08 pm | by admin | | Tags: els, encyclopedia, Encyclopedia of Life, Encyclopedia of Life Sciences, eol

What is Encyclopedia of Life (EOL)? It is also called Encyclopedia of Life Sciences (ELS).

encyclopedia of life pictures

EOL/ELS is an encyclopedia that spans the entire spectrum of life sciences and is published by Wiley-Blackwell. The Encyclopedia of Life aims to digitize and make available all information on every species known to exist! There are about 1.8 million living species known to science. It is compiled from existing databases and from contributions by experts and non-experts throughout the world. It aims to build one “infinitely expandable” page for each species, including video, sound, images, graphics, as well as text.

The Encyclopedia of Life will incorporate the Biodiversity Heritage Library, which will contain the digitized print collections from the world’s major natural history libraries. The project is initially backed by a US$50 million funding commitment, led by the MacArthur Foundation and the Sloan Foundation.

EOL/ELS is available online and as a 26-volume print edition. The online edition was launched in April 2001, with the print edition published in January 2002. At the end of 2004, EOL/ELS was acquired by Wiley-Blackwell from the Nature Publishing Group. 2,414 new and updated articles have been added since then. January 2009 has seen the introduction of a new logo and a new and improved homepage for EOL/ELS.

See Encyclopedia of Life website here.