With GBIF's renewed target of facilitating access to 1 billion data records by end of 2008, it is imperative to explore the feasibility of mobilising various types of primary biodiversity data, including those documented through multimedia resources such as images, photographs, audio and videos.

Because the potential volume of these data types is at least as large that represented by observational data (potentially even larger), it merits special consideration.

The Task Group will work closely with TDWG and other initiatives engaged in development of multimedia data management, and data exchange/sharing standards/protocols.

Membership of the group is as follows:

• Dr. Robert Morris, University of Massachusetts at Boston (USA), Chair
• Mr. Mikko Heikkinen, Finnish Museum of Natural History, Finland
• Mr. Vijay Barve, Foundation for Revitalisation of Local Health Traditions, Bangalore, India
• Dr. Greg Whitbread, Australian National Botanic Gardens, Canberra, Australia
• Dr. Gregor Hagedorn, Institut fur Pflanzenvirologie, Berlin, Germany
• Dr. Gregory Riccardi, Florida State University, Tallahassee, USA
• Dr. Annette Olson, US National Biological Information Infrastructure, US Geological Survey, Reston, Virginia

• Criteria for a Multimedia Data Sharing Infrastructure (MDSI)
• Best practices guide for multimedia data management, and data exchange/sharing
• An estimation of the scale of multimedia resources in biodiversity
• Metadata schema(s) for multimedia data and standards/protocols for exchange/sharing
• Whether existing provider services such as DiGIR or TAPIR will need to be altered, or a new tool developed, to handle these data types
• Identification of potential data providers and suggested ways to encourage their participation through the GBIF network
• Involvement of industry leaders
• Uses of GPS enabled mobile devices and other recording tools