Encyclopedia Britannica 2001 Deluxe Edition

by Pearson Software

Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 11.2 x 9 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.9 pounds
• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B00004Y56H
• Item model number: 852297718
• Date first available at Amazon.com: September 6, 2000
• Average Customer Review: 3.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #20,398 in Software (See Top 100 in Software)
• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes

Product Description

Amazon.com Review

The numbers are impressive: 83,000 articles, more than 7,000 illustrations, 1,500 maps, and an hour of video and audio on your PC--ready to be searched whenever you need to lay your hands on a fact, figure, or some general information--is what you get with the Encyclopedia Britannica 2001 Deluxe. The two CD-ROM set contains all the text of the most recently printed version of Britannica, plus articles added year after year to bring it up to date. Over the past year, 5,500 new articles have been added.

There are various ways to access all this information. Search by keyword or ask questions in plain English. (This works better at some times than at others.) Timelines provide access to key events in history across 14 subjects, including medicine, music, technology, literature, art, and women. Topic tours scrutinize particular subjects, ranging from cathedrals and the chair to glass and goddesses. If you are a student, you may particularly like the Research Assistant, which allows you to gather information from around Britannica in one place ready for use in essays and reports.

If you have enough hard drive space, you can install the whole encyclopedia, which means no disc swapping. Other install options require you to use either one or both of the program CDs when searching Britannica. There are links into Britannica Online for access to top Web sites and up-to-the-minute information, and great facilities for browsers and searchers. Encyclopedia Britannica 2001 Deluxe is simply a topnotch reference tool. --Sandra Vogel

Amazon.com Product Description

The Encyclopedia Britannica 2001 Deluxe Edition is a comprehensive CD-ROM version of the popular encyclopedia, and actually includes the entire text of the 32-volume paper edition. You'll find extensive features, including timelines, a Research Assistant, and an Analyst. Discover the power of Britannica through the natural-language search feature, Ask Britannica.Just type in a word, question, or phrase and Britannica can find the information. Examine the effects of people, events, and discoveries on world cultures from the dawn of civilization to the present. Select from 14 different categories such as technology, exploration, music, medicine, and sports. Enjoy unique in-depth multimedia presentations that capture moments in history and the wonders of the physical world. Links to related articles in the encyclopedia enrich the learning experience. A feature called Compass provides an interactive view of the world. Visit all 191 nations and 29 dependent states and go from a global to a local view, from geography to personality, and even further with thousands of Internet links. Use the Analyst to create your own customized charts, graphs, and tables that allow statistical comparisons between nations and regions on topics such as land use, trade, communication, and more. This deluxe edition includes over 83,000 articles, 7,000 photos and illustrations, 1,500 maps, 1 hour of videos and audio, and much more. It is easy to install with one click of the mouse.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

47 of 51 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars the britanica on your notebook computer!, September 27, 2000

By 

Mayer Goldberg (Beer Sheva, Negev Israel) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Encyclopedia Britannica 2001 Deluxe Edition (CD-ROM)

The encyclopedia britanica on cd is way better than the book version: The articles and entries are hyperlinked, so you can jump from one entry to another immediately. Search for what you like and then click away on a tangent! You can always return to where you were. I got the britanica for reference, and now it's become reading material!

I do not have the 2001 edition: I purposefully bought the 1999 edition and I want to tell you why: Since the 1999 edition, the britanica has been placed on two cd's. It's a fancy package -- with multimedia, pictures, movies, etc, and I would have loved to have had it, but... it's two cd's! This is the one major disadvantage of this offering: Most people don't have two cd players on a single computer. What's worse, notebook computers just don't come with two cd players. This means that you'd need to flip cd's. That didn't make sense to me -- having to carry an extra cd around + having to flip cd's, so I specifically asked for the 1999 edition off of the britanica web site... .

Other than that, the search engine's a bit simpler than what I would have liked, but... that's a minor thing.

Having the britanica on cd is a unique experience -- authoritative information within seconds, links to additional relevant information only clicks away. No book can compete with this, and really no other encyclopedia -- after all, this is the britanica!

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars A Waste of Money, June 29, 2001

By 

M. Fox (Castleton, Vermont USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Encyclopedia Britannica 2001 Deluxe Edition (CD-ROM)

I love references and have frequently enjoyed looking things up or just browsing Britannica. At last the entire text of this wonderful encyclopedia was available loaded on to my hard drive so carrying around disks would not be necessary!...With great anticipation I purchased, loaded and opened the Encyclopedia Britanica. Within thirty days I had discarded it as useless. Why? 1. The encyclopedia feeds you only pieces of articles, paragraphs at a time requiring a frustrating series of clicking even to read one article. 2. Even when you are "allowed" to get a larger segment of an article, the viewing box is NOT resizable, requiring constant scrolling. 3. Searching is based on finding text in titles or the body of the article. This may be good as a last resort, but the wonderful and complex index of the book version is NOT AVAILABLE! 4. It comes with Merriam-Webster dictionary. Of course "Webster" is not copyrighted and any garbage dictionary can use that word, but I know Merriam-Webster to be of very high quality. Unfortunately, you cannot load the dictionary unless you also load the encyclopedia. You must search the dictonary with the same useless search mechanism of the encyclopedia and of course the tiny dictionary window is NOT resizable, forcing you to scroll for the smallest definitions. 5. Six months later, I'm still waiting for my rebate.

A Waste of money. I'm still waiting for a useful encyclopedia that can be independent of disks.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars re-rated, February 15, 2001

By 

N. John "pawnrule" - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Encyclopedia Britannica 2001 Deluxe Edition (CD-ROM)

Been in touch with the Tech support from Britannica and they came up with a suggestion to overcome the lack of a contents page. The suggestion was to run searches for( ab*, ac*...za*..) on the titles instead of entire articles. It isnt a perfect solution but it helps.For being the best encyclopedia and its extensive articles I think it deserves to be re-rated. Falling short of perfection with the lack of a contents page, which I hope will be corrected. In addition the tech support from the web sites was very prompt and professional.