GBIF needs 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 as that represented by observational data (potentially even larger), it merits special consideration.

To investigate the potential of multimedia data, the GBIF Multimedia Resources Task Group submitted two sets of recommendations on expediting the discovery and mobilisation of these resources in September 2008 and March 2009, respectively. The Task Group is currently drafting a multimedia metadata schema, which will be submitted for TDWG ratification in 2009. This schema will be implemented through GBRDS and future versions of the Integrated Publishing Toolkit. GBIF is also developing a manual on discovery, digitisation and mobilisation of multimedia resources in biodiversity.