GBIF, the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (see www.gbif.org [1]) is an international activity to make biodiversity information available to the public via the Internet: This should be a sorce of information not only for scientists, but for all interested persons. GBIF Germany (www.gbif.de [2]) has an enormous importance for the worldwide availabilty of biodiversity data from Germany, especially for and from natural history collections, which collaborate for the first time in a comprehensive project compound funded directly by the German State (Federal Ministry of Education and Research, BMBF) .

last changes: 03.12.2004