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Diane Tough, Head of Cataloguing at the Natural History Museum Library, talked about recent developments in the methods of collection description at the Museum. The Library is one of the foremost resources for researchers in molecular biology, biodiversity, systematics, taxonomy, and the history of science, and consists of over one million books and half a million artworks. Its extensive collections consist not only of current documentation, but also of older material representing a vital source for the study of both biodiversity and early printed scientific books.

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The Encyclopedia of Life is an ambitious project to build an online resource in which every species on earth will have its own web page. This international enterprise consists of five major projects: the Species Pages Group, the Biodiversity Informatics Group, the Scanning and Digitization Group, the Learning and Education Group, and the Biodiversity Synthesis Group. Together they are creating an unparalleled resource for the life sciences that covers every aspect of the study, research, recording and documentation of living creatures. This impressive mass of material is available freely to all, allowing public access to much of the content for the first time.

Graham Higley, Head of Library & Information Services at the Natural History Museum, is a member of the EOL Steering Committee, and Chair of the Biodiversity Heritage Library, a consortium of 10 natural history and botanical libraries, who are digitizing the published literature of biodiversity held in their respective collections and making it available as part of an open biodiversity commons.