Encyclopedia Britannica 2003 Deluxe Edition

by Pearson Software

Product Details

• Shipping Weight: 2.4 ounces
• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B000067OSS
• Date first available at Amazon.com: May 9, 2002
• Average Customer Review: 2.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #18,104 in Software (See Top 100 in Software)
• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes

Product Description

Amazon.com Product Description

The award-winning Encyclopedia Britannica 2003 Deluxe Edition CD-ROM brings the authoritative Encyclopedia Britannica, Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary and Thesaurus, a comprehensive atlas, Britannica timelines, and much more to your desktop. Ideal for students, teachers, or anyone who wants facts fast, this deluxe CD-ROM suite offers easy access to the most comprehensive information available.

The Encyclopedia Britannica 2003 Deluxe Edition's two CD-ROMs are filled with the entire 32-volume Britannica, with more than 75,000 articles, many written by Nobel laureates and other renowned contributors. Also added are a Merriam-Webster dictionary and thesaurus, with nearly 555,000 definitions, synonyms, and antonyms that users can access from encyclopedia articles with a single click. Additional tools include an updated world atlas, timelines, and multimedia collection, as well as the interactive KnowledgeNavigator Web browser and Britannica's clever research organizer.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Britannica 2003 worst edition yet, November 6, 2002

By 

Peter Birrell (Sydney, NSW Australia) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Encyclopedia Britannica 2003 Deluxe Edition (CD-ROM)

The new Britannica 2003 is one of the most disgracefully dysfunctional electronic encyclopaedias I have encountered. It is so poor compared with the 2002 edition (which Heaven knows had its problems - e.g. failure of the DVD to load to hard-drive)that one suspects were Encarta agents sabotaging the design and production processes they could scarcely have made the product more unsatisfactory!

It is much, much slower in its searches than the 2002 edition (don't believe a previous review's claim about the need for sufficient RAM to achieve lightening speed - I have loads, yet the 2003 is still between 5 -10 times slower than the 2002 depending on the type of search). The dictionary does not permit double-clicking of words in the text of articles for their definitions (the 2002 edition did). The new interface is more awkward to use than its predecessor. Need one go on? Have Britannica released a dodgy beta version for the holiday season or have they quite lost the plot?

My advice to potential purchasers is to skip the 2003 offerings and to buy the 2002 Deluxe edition on CDs (it loads to your hard-drive, unlike the 2002 DVD version) and hope that next year Britannica gets its act together. The Britannica is a superb encyclopedia in range and content. If only its current electronic incarnation were worthy of it!

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Good text, very bad software, December 27, 2002

By 

Billy Budd "an_encyclopedias_addict" (Boston, MA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Encyclopedia Britannica 2003 Deluxe Edition (CD-ROM)

I've bought both ENCARTA and BRITANNICA for years. This is my opinion:
TEXT: The Britannica is a superb encyclopaedia in text since 1768. If only its electronic version were worthy of it! Text in the electronic version is different from Printed Encyclopaedia (large articles have been shortened). Britannica claims that it has more articles than Encarta, but this is a joke: articles like "Spain" are only one with a lot of subdivisions in Encarta, while in Britannica subdivisions are considered articles, and you must "jump" from one subdivision to other.
In some areas Encarta is better than Britannica. For example consider "controversial events in modern history" such us "My Lai Massacre": In Encarta one large article and a lot of mentions in others; Britannica does not even know the name.
In theory, you can update Britannica over the Internet free for a year quarterly (4 times), but this does not work. Encarta is updated free EVERY WEEK) with new articles and additions to the old ones. The new articles and additions are included in the next version of Encarta, but this is not true for Britannica. For instance: "Bilbao, Spain": Britannica does not mention the Guggenheim Museum, which opened in 1997, and the population is !!estimated!! of 1982. The same article in Encarta: similar text, 3 photos, 1 map, related articles, sidebar, dynamic timelines and 4 internet pages, plus one specific article "Bilbao Guggenheim Museum". I think Britannica updates its contents very slow, whereas Encarta is completely alive.
MULTIMEDIA: They say that "serious" or "adult" readers do not care about "pictures"; that multimedia is only for kids. I do not agree, because I think that, sometimes, "A picture is worth a thousand words". Works of art, anatomy, maps, diagrams ... Encarta devastates Britannica with a lot of photos, paintings, drawings, maps, animations, interactivities, videos, music and sounds, pictures, literature sidebars, new translation dictionaries (not very good though), atlas, 2-D and 3-D virtual tours, timeline, games ... It's not only the quantity and quality. It is the easy access you have to all the multimedia, and that text and multimedia are fully integrated. Britannica's Atlas is a joke and statistics do not exist or I have not found them. Encarta's has a great detail: 1 cm/ 4 km all over the world (though you find some mistakes) and hundreds of statistical maps.
INTERFACE AND SOFTWARE: This is the worst side of Britannica. In Encarta you only have to type a phrase, a word or the beginning of a word to see all the articles and multimedia that contain it. If you have typed the name of a small village, you see it in the Atlas without clicking again. If Encarta does not find anything, it gives you alternative spellings and you find what you were looking for. To go "jumping" from article to article is very easy and quick, because you have a lot of links and the "Related Articles" section. If you need to copy text or pictures, the integration with Microsoft WORD is perfect. If you don't understand a word, you can double-click it and the dictionary appears in a window.
Navigating with Britannica is different. You get crazy. I will only give an example: if you do not know the exact and correct spelling of a name or word, it does not help you with alternative or similar spellings. The dictionary does not permit double-clicking of words in the text of articles for their definitions. Once an article is displayed you cannot search for a word within the article. This is extremely annoying: you have to perform this task yourself. One "pro" for Britannica: they say it works with Macintosh computers.
This is my piece of advice: If you can afford it, buy both. If not... read again this review.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The Gold Standard, but let down by a poor Atlas, May 3, 2003

By 

Greg Lynn (Perth, W.A.) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Encyclopedia Britannica 2003 Deluxe Edition (CD-ROM)

Encyclopedia Britannica has been the 'Gold Standard' of print encyclopedias for some two-hundred odd years, but its electronic incantations have been much less impressive. Dogged by poor user interfaces, high cost, and ineffective software design (related to poor management at the corporate level and bad business and investment decisions in the 1990's), competitors such as Encarta have run rings around this venerable warhorse of information and knowledge.

Britannica Deluxe 2003 improves on its predecessors, and has attempted to address the problems mentioned above, but still suffers from major weaknesses. The user-interface is better designed (it is easier to make searches), the content more comprehensive and accessible, and more research tools have been added in. The written articles are of first class quality, and the inclusion of the current Britannica yearbooks adds to its value.

However, the package still has some glaring faults. The quality is nowhere near that of the Print Set, with many important maps and diagrams in the print version of the encyclopedia simply being left out in the software version. This is especially frustrating when one is reading an article where map references are essential, i.e. the articles on history, geography or on important countries and geographic regions. The encyclopedia has no provision for updates, unlike its competitors, forcing the user to buy a new package every six months to a year. The organisation of the encyclopedia is also somewhat confusing, unlike the excellent organisation of the print version, which has extensive indexes and a guide to navigating the encyclopedia. The World Atlas is far behind Encarta in quality and in simple interactivity, and it is in fact the weakest part of the whole package.

I would personally recommend that along with Britannica, the Encarta package should be purchased as well. Encarta has 'lighter' content than Britannica but has a first-class atlas, whilst Britannica has a first-class encyclopedia but a second-rate Atlas. The weaknesses and strengths of the both packages tend to complement each other, hence one would be better off with both than with one alone.