In the last decade, a number of major biodiversity informatics initiatives have been launched. These initiatives were funded in large part because shared standards were emerging and there was clear potential to leverage advances in technology, generally. They also represent an appreciation for the need to support extensive global collaboration.  Various audiences require trustworthy data, information, and knowledge about organisms that span both space and time; many need such information to be integrated at large scales.  In this symposium, these initiatives report on their progress towards meeting those needs. In particular the talks focus on issues such as how we achieve interoperability, what makes initiatives sustainable, how projects and their users can be empowered, and how we can bridge the gaps from local to national to international.  Speakers represent five initiatives:

The Global Biodiversity Informatics Facility (GBIF) established in 2001, is an international, government-initiated and government-funded initiative focusing on three core services and products: an index of global interoperable databases of primary biodiversity data, tools for biodiversity data providers, and capacity-building training and mentoring services.

The Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL) was established in 2005 as consortium of natural history and botanical libraries that cooperate to digitize and make accessible the legacy literature of biodiversity and to make that literature available for open access and responsible use.

The Encyclopedia of Life (EOL), founded in 2007, is led by academic institutions and other partners such as BHL. It provides an online website with an infinitely expandable page summarizing a wide array of biological topics for every taxon for both expert and general audiences. It focuses on data aggregation, curation, and social media.

The Atlas of Living Australia (ALA) was began in 2008 by the Australian Government to develop a portal linking all forms of information about Australian plants, animals and microorganisms to meet the needs of research scientists, policy makers, naturalists and others.

ViBRANT (Virtual Biodiversity Research and Access Network for Taxonomy) was funded in 2010 and is an extension of the Scratchpad element of the EU's EDIT project.  Our overall objective is simple: to increase the mobility of data and to make use of shared web resources wherever possible using the Scratchpads as a hub to link a community's data with a range of services.

Speakers (in order):

David Remsen. GBIF: The challenges of intra- and interoperability

Chris Freeland. Biodiversity Heritage Library: Toward a Global, Sustainable Resource

Cynthia Parr. Introducing Encyclopedia of Life version 2: International, personal, and re-usable

Donald Hobern.  Atlas of Living Australia – integrated national biodiversity information

Dave Roberts.  ViBRANT: linking communities and services.

URLs: , http://www.gbif.org, http://biodiversitylibrary.org, http://www.eol.org, http://www.ala.org.au, http://vbrant.edu

Applicability:  All of these initiatives are deeply engaged in large-scale interoperability and digitization, thus relevant both to the TDWG mission and to this year’s conference theme.  This session will also orient new TDWG participants to “acronym” projects that will be mentioned throughout the conference.