In 2003 he joint AnimalBase project/EZOOLO of the Zoological Institute of Göttingen University, and his University Library, to digitize all taxonomically relevant old zoological literature and place it free in the internet. The animals described in the old literature are contained in a new database. The name of this database is Animalbase. The problem of taxonomic work in zoology is often the very difficult access to the old literature, which for the public in some cases is only

present in very few European libraries.
In the past, scientists from New Zealand or Brazil had to travel to Paris, London or Göttingen to verify original species descriptions of animals of their countries. Of course this situation prevents many studies from being done. For historical reasons Göttingen has one of the best old zoological libraries in the world. A heritage of the kings of Hannover.