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All four general-interest encyclopedias that I have been tracking for years have added new features both in their standard and in their deluxe versions, and it's on these new and enhanced features that I'll focus my attention here. The deluxe versions are the ones that you should buy, because for only a little extra money you get a great deal more encyclopedia. Somewhat surprisingly, of these deluxe general-interest encyclopedias, only Microsoft issued a DVD-ROM version. Prices for these products are between $40 and $60, but with competitive upgrades and special promotions you can get them for less.
The 1999 Deluxe Edition
of Compton's Encyclopedia
The Learning Company has once again revamped the interface on Compton's Encyclopedia. I liked the design changes implemented last year, and again most of the changes in this year's edition are reasonable except for the lavender background. The change I like the most is the nifty presentation of the search results as the search progresses, broken down into categories (article, images, sound, etc.). It looks like the meters on the gas pumps at filling stations that show how much you are paying as your tank is being filled. One disadvantage of the new screen is that the one-liner hit lists for images are cut off after a few words, and some of the entries become, you might say, "cliffhangers." In response to a query about civil rights, the picture list included such entries as this: "Throng of mourners walk in a ..." Or: "For his efforts to uphold American ..." And when users click on the picture icon and are told to "Mount Disc 2," many of them would just never bother to learn whose funeral and whose award the pictures are about. More complete captions could easily have been implemented.
Beyond the updated articles and the 1,500 new articles, there are additional software and content changes in Compton's. The Report Starter provides a simple notecard filing system including an outline generator to organize the research done in the encyclopedia.
In the multimedia department, the new features include panoramic pictures, an idea originally introduced by Microsoft, then also picked up by World Book. There are no new videos, animations, or pictures, but there is a new feature built on the existing...