Product Reviews

When reviewing multimedia encyclopedias, it used to be a standard observation that, amid the reams of statistics detailing the number of articles they contained, the handful of discs they used were equivalent to four, five or six shelves full of dusty tomes. These days, the comparison is redundant. No home library could hope to stock the content that either of these discs contains. They're also open-ended, and both products allow those with broadband internet connections to access more dedicated content online and can automatically update their articles.

We wanted to see how easy these two products would make it to find and use the information they contain, and how effectively they used their multimedia capabilities, using sound and video to turn turgid text into the kind of vibrant educational experience that would draw students back again and again.

KNOWLEDGE IS POWER

Both products come on a single DVD, ridding users of one of the major bugbears they used to experience with multimedia reference works: the interminable disc swapping to find the necessary article. Britannica used to be particularly bad, storing multimedia on separate discs from text articles, which made finding all the resources associated with a particular subject a tortuous affair. In its new 2007 incarnation, you'll find everything on one disc, and if you opt for the Full installation option at the outset, you can run all its content from your hard disk, avoiding the need to insert the DVD ever again. Considering the convenience, the 3.6GB of disk space required is modest.

Encarta offers a similar function, but takes up under 1GB. Encarta makes the best first impression of the two. Its bright, uncluttered interface is more immediately welcoming than Britannica's home screen. Encarta's homepage gives you an unfussy list of category headings including Arts & Literature, Science & Technology and Sports & Leisure, plus a keyword search box. Britannica clings to its more traditional roots, offering a lengthy alphabetical list of content.

Encarta works more like a search engine. Articles are located using keywords, with a predictive list of matches appearing as you type. Once you've selected a keyword, a panel on the right-hand side of the screen lists associated resources, from text articles to films clips, dictionary definitions

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and maps. Forward and back arrows let you leaf through pages as you would with a web browser, and a drop-down menu lets you review the articles you've looked at recently. While this setup helps to keep the screen looking tidy and avoids confusion, we liked Britannica's index tabs - much like a modern tabbed web browser - which help you flick more quickly between content.

Articles in Encarta are simply presented and usually brief, stretching to no more than a couple of pages. Mesopotamia - the cradle of Western civilisation - is dispatched in fewer than 1,500 words. On the plus side, this brevity makes resources easily digestible for younger users. Because the articles are punctuated with interactive maps and pictures, researchers can spiral out from the central article, enabling them to learn as much or as little as they want without being bombarded with information. A rotating visual browser lets you flick through related resources without having to scroll through a list, but it's just a gimmick. For greater depth, Encarta directs you to specially selected external university websites. In an attempt to keep up with the internet trend for user-generated or 'wiki' content, users can suggest their own amendments to Microsoft.

Britannica is a far more serious affair. Its homepage opens with an interesting 'this day in history' piece of trivia, but aside from this it's very much down to business with its rather intimidating alphabetical list of articles. It dishes up a whopping 43,000 words on the history of Mesopotamia alone, and accompanies it with a multitude of related articles and an extended bibliography. However, the very sight of all that text would be enough to frighten off all but the most hardened academics. Unlike those in Encarta, the maps aren't interactive, which makes the learning possibilities for younger users much more limited. Britannica makes a token effort to grab their attention by switching between libraries aimed at Elementary and Student users, as well as the standard Ultimate Reference list. However, the differences are really only cosmetic, with the homepage being fronted by a cutesy picture of a panda, and text in a rather patronising cartoon font.

The articles in each library contain some odd choices. Scrolling through, we could scarcely imagine primary school children warming to a scholarly treatise on pioneering US photographer Ansel Adams, or a blow-by-blow account of the action of CD4+ T-lymphocytes in its article on AIDS. Encarta's Children's Encarta option is far more inviting.

beautiful mind

For older users, especially those with more serious academic research in mind, the sheer depth of Britannica's articles make it an obvious choice. As a more rounded and infinitely more entertaining, family reference work, Encarta provides a better balance of fun and facts, sweetening the pill with movies and sound clips that bring learning to life.