A year ago, we produced a CD-ROM for the members of the XVI International Botanical Congress. We invited a number of scientists to present their projects on our CD "Teaching goes Internet". Our goal was to consolidate existing www sites featuring biological teaching and research. In addition, we wanted to create and distribute original multimedia resources for teaching biology with the aim to increase the understanding of basic plant biology.

Teaching is a continuous effort, and many devoted teachers have already presented their work in the internet. We found a large number of scientific projects addressing students, teachers and scientists. They reflect personal intentions, different educational levels and local university requirements. We began to join promoting internet teaching, to retrieve, organize and secure knowledge and to disseminate it to the learning community in all parts of the world.

In July 2000, we participated in the 2000 Summer Institute organized by PKAL, an informal national (US) alliance of individuals, institutions, and organizations committed to strengthening undergraduate science, mathematics, engineering, and technology education. It was the aim of the meeting to find answers to questions like: Where is plant biology undergraduate education headed and what are the major challenges? This workshop included plant biologists working at all levels, from ecosystems to molecules, and was aimed at professional societies, individual teachers, and academic teams. In hands-on workshops and case studies, participants explored a range of topics, including the campus as classroom, technology and pedagogy in plant biology, integrating field experiences, and enhancing the presence of plants in introductory biology. We contributed to these efforts by presenting outstanding internet projects in a session on "Virtual Plants? - Enhancing Learning with Information Technology" that focused on high-quality projects. Thereby, we hoped to help establishing standards for internet teaching.

With this purpose in mind, we created the "Internet Library - Teaching Biology and Related Topics". It is designed to develop into a permanent and ever growing source of knowledge, where students may find useful information about botany and its related topics. The "Internet Library - Teaching Biology and Related Topics" has the additional advantage of interconnecting information units being written by different authors. We intend to let this library grow like a conventional institutional library, but growth will not cease by lack of funds to buy books. We began with collecting links to URL's, but are now asking authors for permission to mirror their projects on our web server. Like books, they are placed on "bookshelves" (to the left) according to their topic. They can even be placed on more than one shelf without being duplicated. The shelves can be rearranged on demand. Authors will be asked to submit newer versions whenever they have updated their projects. Of course, they do keep their copyright. The "Internet Library" is inevitably an open system. Each user will be able to extract a personal copy selecting those topics that are of interest to her or him, and she or he may consult the author directly by e-mail. There is no argument against initiating a library for any other field of science or art. The libraries could grow by self-assembly not limited to the capacity of a single server or URL obeying the laws of evolution and selection just like life itself.

Most statements of web authors point out that their project exists due to an essentially private initiative without too much institutional help. We, for example, are only three people, two of which have duties in the university. It is therefore more or less spare time that we invest in promoting internet teaching for non-commercial use. Our own project "Botany online - The Internet Hypertextbook" started with the conversion of a German textbook, whose copyright is ours, into an electronic book. It will eventually and to the benefit of the public expand into a multiauthor project. – And therefore we ask for your help, your imagination, and your contribution. Please, feel free to e-mail us every constructive idea you have.