This is ironic, given the recent trend of inexpensive reference works on CD-ROM. With most major titles running well under $100, never before have encyclopedias been available to so many, for so little. (Of course, one does need access to a computer with a CD-ROM drive.)
With the $1,400 Encyclopedia Britannica CD-ROM out of the reach of mere mortals, Grolier, Compton's, and Microsoft's Encarta have been left to duke it out for first place. For my money, Grolier has always topped the other two in the category that counts: information. With more than 34,000 articles, The 1996 Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia continues to lead the pack. The new edition includes 1,200 new articles and 6,000 revised and updated entries.
Grolier's interface has received a complete makeover, with all features now accessible from a single window. The '96 edition also heralds the long-awaited arrival of hyperlinks between articles. In previous versions, users had to follow a more circuitous method of linking to related articles.
A pathmakers feature allows users to move around the encyclopedia thematically, instead of alphabetically. This follows a classified form of arrangement championed by both Francis Bacon and Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Each of the six pathmakers topics includes interviews with luminaries like Kurt Vonnegut, Buzz Aldrin, and Stephen Jay Gould.
It's now de rigueur to include new features, and Grolier 1996 doesn't disappoint. An interactive atlas features 900 maps, including 64 world cities. Fifteen hours of additional music has been added. Text of 150 historical documents supports historical entries. Interactive art and 3-D models display details of items from an Indy race car to a Velociraptor.
The 1996 edition also takes a needed evolutionary step. There are more than 12,000 links between various Grolier articles and forums on CompuServe (a membership kit is included on the CD-ROM). The links aren't always an exact match, but it's an important infrastructure change, because the most up-to-date encyclopedias will soon be found on-line.
Unfortunately, this encyclopedia could have used another month of editing. While the articles themselves are factual, many multimedia items display annoying inaccuracies. An animated map of America in 1775 clearly shows Vermont as a 14th colony. General Douglas MacArthur's famed farewell address is listed under multimedia items for the First World War. The caption for Scott Joplin's photo misspells "The Entertainer." There are also instances where dates on maps don't match up with those found in text entries. This is an unfortunate byproduct of the rush to get products on the shelf by the all-important Christmas shopping season.
Overall, The 1996 Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia is a thumbs-up. As CD-ROM technology continues to progress almost daily, some missteps are to be expected. Grolier still produces a fine reference work, and best of all, it isn't hard to lug around on moving day.
Mike Butzgy is a multimedia writer and freelancer who lives in Raleigh, NC. His e-mail address is atomicrom@aol.com..
©1996, ProMotion, inc.