World Book Multimedia Encyclopedia
Page IBM is better known for producing computers than software, so it's a pleasant surprise to find the World Book Encyclopedia easy to use and easy on the eye. A lot of effort has been put into keeping things simple. There are no pop-up windows to confuse the reader: everything happens in a single space, neatly divided into searching on the left and main text on the right. If anything, the simplicity is over-done, as you can't even watch a video in the context of the article it accompanies - click on it, and you jump to a separate page.

There's a great set of media to accompany the words with nice, smooth video, pictures and sounds, and some excellent (if rather small) virtual reality tours that range from Stonehenge to a skeleton. If you aren't looking up something specific in the lightning fast search and want to wander around, there's a browse option that will pull up a screen full of randomly selected entries, limited to a particular medium if you like. On top of this there's the usual limited atlas, a dictionary that pops up definitions when you double-click any word in the encyclopedia and a time line linked into the main articles.

There's also very good online support. World Book has yearbook updates, free for the first year, extra online articles, pointers to relevant web sites and a link to a free online reference library. Overall, World Book is a top class product that gives Encarta a run for its money. There's really very little between them. I found the need to swap CDs with World Book a bit irritating - for instance, if you're browsing virtual reality, the browser is on disk one, and the actual articles all on disk two, so you are constantly swapping. Both have good UK coverage in the "international" editions, with enormous articles on cricket (is it too cynical to think this is the subject everyone will use to check out the British content?) and reasonable coverage of everyday topics. Compare the entries for Rochdale (my home town):

World Book:
Rochdale (pop. 196,900) is a local government district in Greater Manchester, England, centred on the town of Rochdale. The district also includes the towns of Heywood and Middleton. Textile production is a traditional industry. Other industries include warehousing and distribution, and making asbestos and plastics goods. See also MANCHESTER, GREATER.

Encarta:
Rochdale, borough in the metropolitan county of Greater Manchester, north-western England, on the River Roch. Its manufactured products include textiles, machinery, and electric equipment. During the 18th and 19th centuries, Rochdale was one of the largest textile-manufacturing towns in England. In 1844 the Rochdale Society of Equitable Pioneers, the first modern association of the cooperative movement, was founded there. The politician John Bright was born in the town in 1811. Population (1994 estimate) 207,100.

You pays your money and takes your choice, but World Book is certainly up in the top two of CD-ROM encyclopedias. Nice one, big blue.

Overall - A top class multimedia encylopedia that gives Encarta a run for its money. Priced around รบ49.99 in the UK. 2 Windows CDs.

IBM web site: http://www.ibm.com
World Book web site http://www.worldbook.com

Reviewed by Brian Clegg