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This review started out as an update of the features of the 2002 CD-ROM encyclopedias. After I finished loading the samples-World Book, Grolier Multimedia, Comptons, and Encarta-I was so frustrated that I was ready to throw them all away I may never get my desktop back the way I had it. Why insist on two disks? Why have to change color preferences? Why can't it find the printer path? Why do I have to download yet another copy of RealPlayer?
Luckily, I happened to have available a review subscription to Grolier Online that my reference class is currently evaluating. The contrast could not be greater. I have a browser that works. (Two, actually and no problems with either Netscape or Explorer.) I have a good speed Internet connection. I am immediately ready to use an incredible resource that works right away. Web online access to encyclopedias should be the standard.
Grolier Online is a way to access three encyclopedias at the same time: Americana, Grolier Multimedia, and The New Book of Knowledge. It is also the route to Lands and Peoples; The New Book of Popular Science (both reviewed here April 2001); America the Beautiful (from the print series about states); and Neuva encyclopedia Cumbre en linea, the Spanish-language/LatinAmerican perspective encyclopedia. A variety of packages allows library media centers to build the titles into an online set most valuable for their curriculum and assignments. One possibility is to select all three encyclopedias, an arrangement that would serve K-12 buildings and many middle level and high school situations. The ability to search the same topic in multiple layers of reading levels and technicality helps a library media center serve a wide range of student and teacher needs.
With all three encyclopedias licensed and available, a user may choose to search any one title separately or to search them all at once, and then choose the most appropriate. From the Grolier Online homepage, pictures and titles allow direct entry to any single encyclopedia, while a constant Go frame at the bottom of any screen, Search Grolier Online, allows an instant...