Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)Encarta is the top seller in the electronic encyclopedia market. It incorporates more multimedia bells and whistles than any of the others, and probably has the slickest interface and navigation. It has many graphics and streaming video presentations, and another interesting feature is the "virtual tours," which allow you to explore ancient cities such as Babylon as they might have been in their heydey. It has more pictures, photos, and illustrations, as a percentage of total content, than any other major encyclopedia.
All this extra graphic content comes at a cost, which is that the average Encarta article isn't as long or detailed as the other sets. However, this doesn't mean they're short; I compared the "Bird" article with those in several of the others, and in Encarta it's 20 pages long, but the World Book's is 40 pages, and the Britannica's amazingly was 112 pages. However, the Encyclopedia Americana's was also 20 pages long.
I also checked the biographies for several important people, such as George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and John Adams, which I assumed would be among the longest and most detailed in the encyclopedia. Washington's was 37 pages, Thomas Jefferson's was 29, John Adams was 15, but Ben Franklin's was only 6, oddly enough.
Depending on the age and education and other considerations, one might be better for your needs than another, so I thought I'd offer brief comparisons below, based on my own research. I include the Columbia one for comparison although I don't know if a CD version exists. The print version of Collier's is likely dead at this point, as a result of its acquisition by Microsoft.
Encarta--35,000 articles, with 3500 extra articles added from Microsoft's acquisition of Collier's, giving it a more academic quality in the recent edition. 8,000 photos/illustrations (14,000 in deluxe), 115 videos/animations (150 in deluxe), and 2,000 sound clips (2,300 in deluxe). Has the most advanced search capabilities. Searches include all boolean operators plus NEAR (for within 8 words). Can also limit a search by category (Life Science, Geography, Performing Arts, etc.)
A unique feature of Encarta is that Microsoft has gone to great lengths to make it attractive to those interested in African and black studies. There is a special Africa Library of Black America, with over 160 articles on black literature, ranging from slave narratives to poetry to non-fiction to novels written by eminent black authors. The Africana articles and the Africa Library entries even appear on the main Articles drop-down menu for easy access--the only specific literature category with such prominence.
In addition, the Encarta World Atlas allows you to show African countries by tribe and language, so you can see which tribes and languages occur where geographically. There are hundreds of articles on African tribes and ethnic groups, discussing their history, culture, language, and art, in addition to the usual articles on the countries themselves.
Despite the negative comments from a couple of reviewers about the "carousel interface," I found it quite good, and you don't have to use that access method if you don't want to since there are others.
Britannica--contains most articles, at 65,000. Also the most technical. Very good science and international content. Science is 40% of total material. However, it's very technical. No matter what Britannica says, it is not appropriate for anyone under 12th grade and probably first year of college. Most of the technical articles are written as though they're intended for practicing professionals in a field who are looking for a quick review of an area. The article on Bird is 112 pages long, and the one on Western Philosophy is 199 pages. However, if you want the ultimate in scholarly substance this is the one for you. Librarians prefer the World Book to the Britannica since it's easier to use.
World Book--the best selling encyclopedia in it's print version. 17,000 entries, 28,000 illustrations (over 80% in color--largest number of any set). Consistently rated the best overall set by librarians. A unique feature is that articles are written at the level of the expected reader. The CATS article will be at an easier level than PHYSICS.
Encyclopedia Americana--contains 45,000 articles and 24,000 illustrations, which is close to that of the Britannica, but only 15% are in color--the lowest percentage of any adult set. In contrast to the Britannica, entries are more specific and shorter, rather than longer with broader coverage. Librarians say they prefer it to the Britannica.
Grolier's Multimedia Encyclopedia--Unfortunately, I don't have an article figure, but there are 10,000 pictures, 1,200 maps, 200 video and animation clips, and 15 hours of sound. CD version includes the complete text of all 21 volumes of Grolier's Academic American encyclopedia. The multimedia version also includes additional articles written especially for this edition. Has powerful search capabilities. You can search the usual way, by title or topic, but you can also search by portion of a word, word proximity, and in what Grolier's calls Complex Mode, you can specify the search by media type--text, picture, map, table, factbox, audio, and video, and by 10 major categories--such as science, technology, geography, and history.
COLUMBIA ENCYCLOPEDIA--50,000 entries averaging about 200 words in length. Mainly text based, only has 500 illustrations. The most heavily slanted toward biography, with 45% of the entries being biographical. For example, it contains every name from King James Version of the Bible. The lack of an index is made up for by extensive cross-references within articles.
Hope my little comparison review helps. Happy encyclopedia buying and reading!
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Encarta Reference Library 2004 DVDThe Library That Changes with the Times!Product InformationEncarta Reference Library 2004 combines the resources of itsaward-winning encyclopedia with a variety of research and learning tools todeliver a complete reference resource for home or school use. Comprehensivehomework tools integrate homework project & research starters with theDictionary & Thesaurus Literature Guides and Chart Maker to create acomplete research center to help students achieve greater success in theclassroom. New to 2004 is a collection of videos from Discovery Channel and anew Visual Browser providing users with a rich and dynamic way to make learningfun.Key BenefitsComprehensive Homework and Research tools with Dictionary &Thesaurus Literature Guides Homework Starters and more. The innovative Encartalearning tools help students learn more and achieve more. Have your childrenspend less time searching and more time learning - you'll discover how easy itis when you put these indispensable tools to work.New video content from Discovery Channel. Explore a collection of 20high-quality videos hand selected to enliven the learning process from readingarticle content to experiencing it.Access information that changes with our changing world. Update Encartakeeps the reference materials in Microsoft Encarta Reference Library 2004 bothtimely and accurate.A wealth of relevant information on virtually any subject. With onesearch access up-to-date rich and reliable content and multimedia from EncartaEncyclopedia Deluxe Encarta World Atlas Encarta Africana live StreamingMedia web links from Web Center literature guides translation dictionariesand many additional resources – all in one place. Adding the new VisualBrowser provides an innovative way to discover relationships between articlesand multimedia content.Video content from Discovery ChannelA collection of 20 high-quality videos.Visual BrowserNew way to explore relation
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