Last night, I opened the box for Compton's Encyclopedia 2000, inside, I found two books, two CDs for the Encyclopedia and one CD containing all the National Geographic articles for 1997 and 1998. One of the books, a User's Guide, is quite complete, describing the features of the program and how they are accessed. The other called "The Handy Science Answer Book", includes many useful and interesting questions about various science subjects, i.e.: space, earth, etc.

I began with disk 1 of the Encyclopedia, which started automatically and, thankfully, painlessly, on my 450MHz PIII. A screen appeared which led me on a thorough tour of the features of the program. And there are many - all assessed from dropdown menus. A FIND window contains a space to type in a key word to reference a subject. After a brief time, during which I assume the program is searching all the words in the database, a list of articles appears with icons indicating whether the particular item is an article, a film, a sound clip, picture, geographic area, etc. There is a Boolean feature which permits OR, AND, and NOT operators to modify the search. In any case, a click on the appropriate item took me to the article listed.

Once in an article, picture, film clip, etc, you may find underlined hyperlinks to other articles or thumbnail pictures leading to films, sound clips, pictures, etc. A double click over any word leads to a dictionary and thesaurus article on the word in question complete with phonetic spelling and definition.

The depth and amount of detail relating to the individual subjects is mind-boggling. I began by following a relatively obscure string, "entropy". The first definition was from information theory. I had to search to find the definition I was more familiar which was related to thermodynamics. I am a former and quite out of date chemical engineer. I also looked up a subject I picked from way back in high school, the vigilante movement of the west. In Detroit, where I attended high school, I had to search the musty shelves of the Detroit Historical Society to pull my subject together. Compton's had a brief paragraph on the subject, which was somewhat disappointing, but understandable given the huge number of topics covered in the program.

The graphics are outstanding with over 150 films and a number of "IPEX" 360-degree views of well known geographic features such as the River Jordan and Eiffel Tower. The IPEX view of the Louvre allowed me to look at the museum from the front courtyard in a full circle surrounding a point and to zoom in and out as I wished.

The sound files are also good, but most are in the second CD. It requires an aggravating change but, given the breadth of material, is necessary until Compton's and we the users adapt DVD technology. I tried a clip of Louis Armstrong. Maybe it was my cheap sound card and speakers, but the sound was tinny and unsatisfactory. Other sounds were much better, however, such as individual musical instruments and well-known speeches.

An atlas feature took me to detailed information on areas around the world. The Atlas is accessed from a world map with hotspots covering those areas with articles in the encyclopedia. There is a small article about Sarasota, I found by zooming in on the United States, then Florida. The article states Sarasota is known for citrus fruits, cattle and electronics (?) but says nothing about the resort aspects. Actually, the longer we can keep Sarasota a secret, the better off we are!

A timeline section contains a wealth of links to articles, films and pictures. The timeline extends from prehistoric times to the present and lists important events of the time selected. In some ways, this is one of the most impressive research tools in the program.

There is, however, another section called "Research Tools" which is reached from a dropdown menu. The tools include a "topic finder" to help a student zero in on a topic once a general area of interest is selected. I began with a general topic of Literature, then narrowed the search to National and Regional literature, English Authors and finally, James Boswell. A "report starter" section, prompts you to fill in "note cards" and provides hints on organizing a report. Both a "notebook" section and even a presentation section allows you to extract articles and clips to show others. In the presentation section are sample shows indicating what you can prepare from the material in the encyclopedia. The sample shows are quite impressive and prove that a presentation can be developed with a minimum of effort. In short, the encyclopedia provides a simple, intuitive means for a student to prepare a report. When I consider the hours I spent in various libraries to obtain the same type of data, I wonder if I wasted my time or if the process is now so simple that a student is not forced to think through the organization of a report and to creatively seek out sources of information.

A portion of the program is devoted to on-line updates. The updates contain more recent information since the program was published and are organized by month. I was able to update all months but May 2000, for some reason, although I tried to download directly from Borderbund's site rather than via the program itself. The online section includes an "Exploratorium" from which 20 optical experiments can be viewed online from San Francisco's Exploratarium Museum. There are a number of other features as well. For example, there is a planetarium section which shows the night sky at or near most locations around the globe over a range of time periods.

In short the Encyclopedia is a rich source of information presented in an exciting format complete with movies, sound and 3-D effects. It represents a great source for high school and college students to use as reference or as a means to prepare a report. There are enough links to other sources through the program's on-line facility to permit you to obtain most of the additional information you need to prepare a report if the desired data can not be found in the program




Recommended: Yes