Sophisticated, intelligent and slick enough to pass for actual work on any office computer screen, Encarta ‘95 is the most comprehensive, and among the fastest, of the programs we tried. Encarta’s warm colors and easily navigable command structure are nonthreatening enough to hold the attention of the most short-fused adult and the least willing high-school student. A search for ““battleship,’’ for example, quickly yields a color photo of the USS Missouri and hotlinks to other types of naval vessels (Compton’s delivers a two-line definition). The range of material, depth of content, smooth videos and utterly simple search modes make Encarta approachable, mod-ern and endlessly useful.
Oddly, though, one of the greatest selling points of the program has nothing to do with content or style: it’s the clean, quiet ““swoosh’’ sound that happens when a user passes the cursor over a header, prompting an options bar to slide out – without the click of a mouse. Microsoft hints that the ““swoosh,’’ and Encarta’s updated graphical interface, are signs of things to come in the long-awaited Windows ‘95 operating system. If so, start investing.
Compton’s is inviting and fun to use for all the same reasons TV dinners are inviting and fun to eat: three separate compartments, one for each course. The only drawback is modest nutritional value.
Compton’s divides the screen into a three-box template, one for text, one for videos and pictures, one for maps, time lines, topic searches and tables of contents. Blow up an image or text to full screen size, then hit an option key to return to the template. The interface is clear, the colors nicely muted and, best of all, the option bars never disappear – even while you’re watching animations or listening to one of South Africa’s national anthems (Compton’s offers them both, Encarta neither). The problem is that Compton’s often too-brief text entries make it feel more like a dictionary than an encyclopedia, and searches are slower than Encarta’s. Compton’s makes the most sense for kids who need to explore topics on a well-organized screen, but will frustrate adults looking for quick answers.
The 1995 grolier multimedia encyclo-pedia is like an elaborate cocktail reception with an abundance of small talk and little substance. After a long wait for loading, a montage of busy and confusing graphics appears along with sound clips that merely annoy. The main menu then defaults to an indecipherable bar of icons. Many of the articles themselves are short and shallow. As for the ““multimedia’’ part of the encyclopedia, there is indeed some entertaining footage. Shouldn’t everyone have instant access to a video clip of the Nixon-Khrushchev Kitchen Debate? Or Truman’s A-bomb announcement? But in the process, Grolier has made some befuddling choices. Women’s suffrage is the sole entry under the ““ideas and beliefs’’ heading of the Multimedia Maps section. And why devote a multimedia map to the Korean and gulf wars, but not World War II? High-school students in search of quick information or a few hours’ distraction will enjoy this CD-ROM. Anyone looking for depth will likely be disappointed.
Introduced for windows in 1991, mi-crosoft’s Bookshelf was one of the first CD-ROM reference products, and it’s still one of the most useful. The concept is clever – one disc that combines all the books that usually line the bookshelf next to your desk: dictionary, encyclopedia, thesaurus, almanac, quotations, atlas, chronology. Searching is easy. You just type in a key word and the entries pop up. Better yet, you can keep a choice of Bookshelf icons open at the top of your screen at all times. If you’re writing in your word processor and want to look up the encyclopedia entry for ““virus,’’ simply highlight the word in your text and click on the encyclopedia icon. You can look through one or all of the books at once. Bookshelf is not a complete reference work, by any means. The encyclopedia is abridged, not a full-fledged text like Encarta or Compton’s. If you need a whole lot of information on a topic, you would have to look elsewhere. Bookshelf works best as a quick hit, to double-check a fact or definition. If your work requires a lot of research-based writing, you might want to stick Bookshelf in your CD-ROM drive and keep it there so it’s available whenever you need it. And put a nice plant on your old shelf.
