Researchers at the CSIRO in Canberra are preparing to digitise images and data for almost 12.5 million insects.

Simon Checksfield, the digital collections manager for CSIRO's national research collection, said the ambitious project would be welcomed by scientists, bug catchers and school groups around the world.

"It's particularly important for this digitisation to happen in Australia because we hold a very unique set of biodiversity here," he said.

The online resource will include images as well as anatomical information and advice on the identification of insects and related organisms.

"We continue to discover new species almost daily and a lot of those insects are yet to be named," Mr Checksfield said.

The Australian National Insect Collection is housed in a series of drawers at the CSIRO's Black Mountain campus in Canberra.

The Australian National Insect Collection is kept at the CSIRO in Canberra. ( Supplied: CSIRO )

"Of the 12.5 million insects that we have, 70 per cent is endemic or unique to Australia," Mr Checksfield said.

"That biodiversity can't be found anywhere else in the world so it's really important for us to maintain those collections."

Mr Checksfield described the process as a "mind-boggling amount of work", with the collection growing by more than 100,000 specimens each year.

"We can do what we call whole drawer imaging, where we can take a picture of a whole drawer of insects and then break those images up," he said.

"The biggest problem we face with the insect collection is the labelling — all the metadata information about the insects is not immediately visible.

"Often we have to handle the specimen and separately take pictures of the labels."

While the CSIRO is focused on helping research institutions collaborate internationally, Mr Checksfield said the collection would be equally important for the public.

"There's also a lot of emphasis on reaching out to the general community because a lot of the information we supply could be used for things that we've never even imagined."

The CSIRO's digital collection will be made publicly available online at the Atlas Of Living Australia.