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About

Welcome to the Library of Images from the Environment (LIFE), a collaborative effort to make diverse, high-quality images (photographs, illustrations, and graphics) of the environment freely available for research and other nonprofit uses. Because so many individuals and organizations have deposited images in our library or have allowed us access to their online images, our photographic collections cover a wide breadth of topics, including images of plants, animals, fungi, microorganisms, habitats, wildlife management, environmental topics, and biological study/fieldwork. We also strive to provide detailed information, or metadata, with each image to make it useful for research, education, resource management, and decision making. Metadata include scientific names, a description of the context in which the photograph was taken, location, habitat classifications, sex or age of the subject, camera information, and much more. Each image is more than just a nice picture or illustration; it is a record of our environment.

A Recent Change
LIFE Mission Statement
What You Will Find
The Standards Behind our Images
Citing LIFE
LIFE Staff
The Future
Disclaimers

A Recent Change

The LIFE is a new and improved take on what used to be known as the Digital Image Library, which was created in 2004. A new database and Web site allows us to serve many more images, and allows the user to sort the thousands of pictures within a category, search within the results, see related images, and find locations where images were obtained on a map. The improved database also can support much more information with images, including coordinates, the sex of the subject, information about any specimens featured in images, etc.

LIFE is more than another digital image library: it is a gateway to many contributors' images and does not focus on a particular species or topic. Instead, LIFE emphasizes images from the environment in all its wonderful, biological breadth.

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LIFE Mission Statement

The LIFE mission is to support the research and understanding of our environment by providing high-quality biological images linked to detailed information for scientists, conservationists, decision-makers, educators, students, and the general public worldwide.

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What You will Find

All of our images are freely available for most nonprofit uses. The majority are in the public domain, so any use is allowed without your needing to get permission from the creator (i.e., photographer). We do ask that you give the suggested credit. Please look carefully at each image for the contributor's established uses. Our Media Usage section provides more information.

Because the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) coordinates the efforts and is one of its primary users (along with other U.S. Department of Interior agencies), we have a strong North American focus. We also have many national and international partners who research, protect, or manage a variety of aspects within the environment. As a result, our library showcases images that are not only beautiful photographs of plants and animals, but also photographs that depict the characteristics used to identify certain species, as well as snapshots of species in locations where they have not been previously recorded. Our collections include photographs depicting rare animal behaviors, invasive species and methods to manage them, changes in landscapes over time, human interaction with the environment, diseases, pollination, predation, and more.

You can see recently uploaded images under the What's New section.

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The Standards Behind our Images

Most of our users are seeking credible biological images to support research, natural resource management, education, and decision-making. Therefore, LIFE requires standards for images to ensure the following: (1) consistent display within the library; (2) credible identification of a species or habitats; and (3) no misrepresentation of natural images (i.e., the image is not digitally or otherwise altered to fake a natural situation). The expertise of each partner is reviewed for before that partner's collection is accepted, and images are continually reviewed to make certain that they meet image and documentation standards.

All of our contributors sign a letter of collaboration stating the following:

1. That the contributor fully owns the media provided, and that other rights (such as privacy and publicity) have been properly documented.

2. That species or habitats have been identified by or using a credible, scientific resource.

3. That photographs have not been altered digitally to change the content. Any exceptions (such as correcting the color of an old slide) must be noted.

4. That they will identify the context of a scene, such as photograph of an animal taken in nature, versus taken in a 'set,' that recreates nature.

Although our photographers make a vigorous effort to identify species, please Contact Us if you see an incorrect name applied to a species featured in on our photographs.

In addition:
Metadata standards: we require that each image be submitted with detailed information, or metadata. Certain information is required to develop the metadata, such as photographer's name, a description of the photograph, keywords, and copyright information. Inclusion of additional metadata, such as geographic location and date, is strongly encouraged. The more information that is provided, the more valuable an image can become to a variety of users. Specific metadata requirements include the following:

1. Species and common names according to the Integrated Taxonomic Information System when possible.

2. Preferred keywords (i.e., descriptive terms or tags) according to the recommended terms within the Biocomplexity Thesaurus, an online thesaurus of scientific terminology related to the environment.

Our metadata schema has been created in conjunction with the drafting of a multimedia standard by the Biodiversity Information Standards group that is suitable for biological images, video, and audio. Our schema will be mapped to the final version, and both are based in many ways on the following standards: Dublin Core, Darwin Core, MODs, IPTC, and XMP. You can obtain our schema and the mappings to the various appropriate standards under the Help section.

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Citing LIFE

Please see our Media Usage section.

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LIFE Staff

To ensure a useful site with credible images, full- and part-time staff and volunteers, including biologists and/or ex-teachers and outreach specialists, have provided advice on the image needs of biologists, resource managers, teachers, and students. Several have professional photography or graphic design experience and help with the technical aspects of the images and the look and feel of the Web site. We also have assistance from several nonprofessional enthusiasts who have a strong love of photography. Since USGS helps promote standards and protocols for interoperability among its many partners, standards experts have advised us on how to structure our metadata information. Finally, our IT staff jumps in to help us design new tools and features.

As we build this site, we strive to ensure its usefulness. We search for potential new contributors to obtain content and photographs to enhance our site. As collections are submitted, the appropriate staff members review image quality and metadata to ensure accuracy. Additional research may then be conducted to help fill in more detailed information, to determine how our images are being used throughout the world, or to find out what the latest tools are for managing images.

Our staff is dedicated to ensuring a high level of quality, and as we grow, we will continue to look for ways to improve the usefulness of these important images.

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The Future

We continue to develop our library in order to provide useful, credible images and other media. We have thousands of new photographs being brought onboard. In the upcoming year, we will work to include more illustrations, graphics, and audio and video files. Visit again soon to see what new species and subjects make their way into our system.

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For more information about LIFE, see:

Contact Us
Contributors
Factsheet
FAQs
Help
Media Usage
Site Map

Disclaimers

Individual contributors set their level of usage and permissions, so look for the "Rights" statement accompanying each image. For information on how to credit contributors, see under Media Usage.

Model Release - unless noted specifically with an image under the "More Credit Info" tab or in the Description, no person featured in a photograph in the LIFE has signed a model release statement or has in any other way agreed to have their photograph used for publicity campaigns or for commercial uses.

Disclaimer, Attribution & Privacy Statement

References to non-U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI) products do not constitute an endorsement by the DOI. By viewing the Google Maps API on this web site the user agrees to these TERMS of Service set forth by Google.