Customer Reviews

Library Of The Future 4th Edition

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Well, surprise--this "book" was just what it promised! Five thousand (count 'em) articles and books for $15. That's not even a penny apiece. You can usually find the complete works of Shakespeare here and there in a book, but this CD has all of that and lots more: Mark Twain, Jane Austen, even Edgar Rice Burroughs. And you can read them in large type--just great for my Dad with his vision problems. That makes this Christmas easy shopping.

This is an unbelievable piece of software! I just finished reading a 400 page novel (Bel Ami by Guy de Maupassant) via my computer screen. You can adjust the letter size to up to about 1/4 inch high so it's very easy on the eyes. And the auto scroll feature means that your hands are free to enjoy a cup of coffee at the same time. It is simply astounding that so many works, from the complete works of Shakespeare to War and Peace, among hundreds of others, can be contained on a single cd-rom costing 20 bucks! Buy it. You may be doing your part to save Western Civilization!

It is hard to understand why, after all these years of computer and software development in many areas, this "Library of The Future CD ROM" is the only effort that can be considered of any value, to comprise into CD ROM media the work of many authors. By now, one would have thought that CD's will be available with the complete works of authors from all countries and eras. I understand that copyright is an issue, but still, there is serious money to be made in preparing an assortment of CD's, in different lenguages that include pratically all the literary work of value in the world. In this particular case of the "Library of the Future", the software interface is poor, but the reader will have in just one CD ROM more than 5,000 literary pieces, including very hard to find works by greek poets and other ancient authors. A commendable effort that needs someone with the resources to do a serious follow up.

You can quibble about the ancient interface, and the multimedia is somewhere between ludicrous and worthless. Yet, when all is said and done, we have here 5000 titles of the Western World's most important literature. I've used it for literary research with great effect. The search engine is crude but effective. Individual titles can be saved to your hard disk and/or printed. This disk is an indispensible asset to any library, or anyone with any pretensions of education. For $15 bucks its the best literary bargain in town.

The Technical Assistance desk of AbleSoft says that this CD cannot be installed on some computers. The Technical Assistance person I spoke with did not specify which computers have this problem or what the problem is. Since my computer is new, has plenty of RAM, and a large hard drive, the capacity of my computer is not the problem. If you have a Dell computer proceed with caution or you may end up having to pay for return shipping like I did.

I am at a loss as to why there are not more products on the market like this. What could be more useful than an entire library of 5000 literary works on a single CD! You can put the equivalent of several tons of books in your pocket! I owned a previous version published by Electronic Home Library years ago and was highly satisfied with it- especially the search function. This disc contains many more literary titles- including the unquestioned classics of antiquity. It is impossible to list all the works or authors (Novels, plays, poems, religious works, historical and scientific documents- all unabridged.) While this last (4th edition) was written for use on old 386 systems I have found that it works just fine on my Pentium III system. It also works with my older Electronic Home Library collection.

You can search instantly by work, phrase, subject, title, or author.

Plus there are hundred of original illustrations- not to mention selective audio readings and video clips.

Combine this with a lap top and you are a walking library.

What more can I say.
5000 good things to read.
Simple no-frills interface.
You can make the type-face larger to make it EASY to read and then just turn on the automatic scroll.

Should Scribners or Amazon be worried about this? I don't think so. If I want to read Madame Bovary unplugged I'll get it at the bookstore or from Amazon. I'll buy as many books as ever.
But this is so coooooool. Download these on-line? I don't think so!!! You have better things to do with your time and RAM memory than download War and Peace. Sheeeesh!

I DON'T WANT E-BOOKS. I will never buy an e-book.
I want this and when I want something else I want a nice little Scribners or something. Or when I want a Dan Brown I'll get that.
But somebody's gotta bring this AbleSoft product back!!!!!

I gave away my copy thinking I could buy another.
PLEASE SOMEBODY!!!!
I'd pay $$$.

What a bunch of whiners -- with a few exceptions, of course -- have reviewed this CD-ROM. I am delighted to have found it. And so will you be. It is fabulous and ought to be one among many, many, many such CD-ROMs loaded with all of Western (and other) literature. I have used it on many occasions, and am only disapointed when the work I seek is not included. But how can anyone complain when they get 5,000 works of world literature for a pittance?? Please give us more of this kind of software.
It is true that the interface and typeface are a tad primitive, but everything is very accessible and the works and authors can be sorted many ways. I would imagine, however, that the lack of over-glitzy interfaces -- deeply disturbing as this may be to some poor tadpoles -- frees up space for more authors.
"Not worth the money..." writes one invertebrate. What absolute nonsense!!

You have to ask yourself if you are purchasing the product for the software or for the titles. I personally bought it for the titles. You can save each one of the titles individually as a text file and import into your favorite ebook reader or viewer (Cut & Paste). The software is a little cludgy but the content far out weighs the interface.

More to read here than a few life times.

This is an old product that has needed updating for many years. It does have a clunky interface and needs a complete system overhaul. Nevertheless it is fairly easy to use and has a great selection of titles (all out of copyright, of course) and a limited search capability that is very useful when doing research in literature, history, religious works, etc. It needs to be revised so it will run under System 7 and Vista. I can't run it on my new computer and have kept an older one around just to use it. My alternative is to copy the books I really want to Word or some other text processor and save them that way as individual files. This would lose the search function, however, and is only a partial solution. XP Mode on System 7 is viable until 2014 when Microsoft support for XP goes away so don't expect XP to be in the next MS operating system.