Encyclopedia Britannica 2009 Student & Home Edition [Old Version]

by Avanquest

Product Features

• The most complete reference source for students and adults--3 encyclopedias in one (Elementary, Student, Adult); Britannica's Ultimate Reference Suite with student features.
• 100,000+ authoritative and richly illustrated articles; 166,000+ Web links and biographies, dictionaries and thesauri, timelines, and interactive multimedia
• Thousands of new engaging videos, photos, audio clips, magazine and Web links to keep students interested and motivated to learn
• Hundreds of interactive study guides, exercises, and learning games designed to help students understand math, social studies, and science concepts; suitable for multiple grade levels
• Comprehensive Homework Help--interactive lessons & "How to" documents to help students excel in school; also includes Britannica Test Prep--improve your ACT & SAT scores

Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 7.5 x 5 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4 ounces
• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B00192D1HM
• Item model number: 8811
• Date first available at Amazon.com: May 1, 2008
• Average Customer Review: 3.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (19 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,191 in Software (See Top 100 in Software)
  • #27 in Software > Education & Reference > Encyclopedias & Dictionaries

Product Description

Amazon.com

Encyclopædia Britannica Student & Home Edition provides detailed articles and comprehensive learning tools to help students excel in school. From math and science, to foreign language and social studies homework is completed with greater accuracy. Written by notable experts, Encyclopædia Britannica is the most trusted and authoritative resource for students of all ages.

Benefits

• Award-winning and #1 best selling* reference software
• 3 Encyclopedias in One--Elementary, Student, and Adult
• The most comprehensive reference suite--100,000+ authoritative and richly illustrated articles, 166,000+ Web links, thousands of new images, video, and audio clips, biographies, dictionaries and thesauri, timelines, and more
• Interactive learning games and activities designed to help students understand math, social studies , and science concepts
• Foreign language assistance--improve your Spanish with Merriam-Webster's Spanish/English Translation Dictionary
• Comprehensive homework help--interactive lessons and "How to" documents to help students excel in school
• Current--free monthly content updates
• Written by Nobel Laureates, Historians, and Scholars
• Highly recognized reference tools--Merriam Webster's Dictionaries & Thesauri
• More Value--FREE! Encyclopædia Britannica Online membership--$70 value! and Britannica Test Prep Offer--20% discount on all Test Prep packages!
• Dual platform--Windows/Mac compatible
• 90-day money back guarantee

*NPD Group/NPD TechWorld, January 2007--March 2008. Based on U.S. Retail Unit Sales for the Encyclopedia Category.

The Easy All-in-One Research Companion for Students & Adults

	Encyclopædia Britannica Library For high school students, college students, and adults. Over 75,000 articles to keep you learning and growing.
	Britannica Student Library For ages 10-14. More than 15,800 articles that students can quickly and easily access for up-to-date, accurate, and trusted information.
	Britannica Elementary Library For ages 6-10. Over 2,600 easy-to-read articles designed to help elementary students thrive in school.

Excel in School with Multiple Learning Tools

	New--Interactive Tutorials Hundreds of study guides, exercises, and learning games designed to help students understand math, social studies, and science concepts. Suitable for all grade levels!
	New--Geography & Foreign Language Tour the world right from your computer. World Atlas takes you where you want to go, Britannica GeoAnalyzer gives you country statistics, and Merriam-Webster's Translation Dictionary helps you improve your Spanish.
	More Multimedia & Online Tools Thousands of engaging videos, photos, audio clips, magazine and Web links to keep students interested and motivated to learn.

Take notes and save articles, images, and videos in one convenient location.

Homework is easier when you have the right tools at your disposal.

Homework is easier when you have the right tools at your disposal.

Homework is easier when you have the right tools at your disposal.

Resources to Help Students Get & Stay Organized

Workspace
Stay organized at all times! With Workspace you can take notes and save articles, images, and videos in one convenient location.

Virtual Notecards
Save notes from your articles on a virtual note card. Notes are printable to make your research easier and portable.

Bookmark & Save
Easily incorporate articles and media into reports.

Helpful Tips & Information for Every Student

Comprehensive Homework Help
Homework is easier when you have the right tools at your disposal. Interactive lessons and activities and "How To" documents make learning fun and interesting. Useful tips include how to right a research paper, a book review, and a science report, plus how to prepare a science fair project and an oral presentation.

New--Britannica's Online Spotlights
Get in-depth coverage of exciting topics selected by Britannica editors, including The American Presidency, Hispanic Heritage, Shakespeare, Olympic Sports, Guide to Black History, and more.

7 Great Reasons Students Choose Britannica

• Easy-to-use: Find research articles quickly and easily with A-Z QuickSearch.
• Interactive: Study guides, exercises, photos, videos, and audio.
• Effective: Useful tips, activities, and tools to help students excel in school.
• Credible: Articles are written by Nobel Laureates, historians, and notable experts.
• Convenient: No downloading or Internet connections required.
• Safe: No pornography, pop-up ads, or questionable content.
• Up-to-date: Stay current with regular updates.

Authoritative and richly illustrated articles.

Britannica Biographies covering influential world leaders and great minds.

Britannica Home Edition

Your school days may be over, but Britannica understands your desire to expand your knowledge and satisfy your curiosity. With thousands of articles, biographies, BrainStormer, Britannica Classics, and much more, Britannica keeps you learning and growing.

Authoritative and Richly Illustrated Articles
Discover a wealth of information with in-depth and richly illustrated articles from one of the world's most respected names in knowledge--Encyclopædia Britannica.

New--Britannica Biographies
More than 2,000 biographies covering influential World Leaders from 2930 BC to the present day. Plus Great Minds--2,000 astronomers, Nobel laureates, scientists, and others that changed the world.

Exclusive--Britannica BrainStormer
An interactive way to understand relationships between ideas, subjects, and people.

Exclusive--Britannica Classics
Articles written by Britannica's most notable contributors including Marie Curie, Albert Einstein, Sigmund Freud, and Harry Houdini.

Free Monthly Content Updates
Stay current with the newest and most updated articles for one full year. Internet access and registration required.

Exclusive Offers for Software Customers

Free 1-year trial membership to Britannica Online Premium.

Britannica Online 1-Year Trial Membership--$70 Value!
Register your software today and enjoy a free 1-year trial membership to Britannica Online Premium!

• Complete access from anywhere, anytime
• Over one million pages online
• Discounts to the Britannica Store

Britannica Test Prep--20% discount on All Test Prep Packages
Britannica Test Prep is the premium, customized online solution for SAT and ACT test preparation.

• Results Increase your SAT score an average of 305 points.**
• Risk Free We guarantee to raise your test score.**
• Recognized Business Week, CNN Money, and others have called Britannica Test Prep the future of ACT and SAT preparation.

**Go to www.britannicatestprep.com/software to learn more.

Product Description

Encyclopaedia Britannica Student & Home Edition provides detailed articles and comprehensive learning tools to help students excel in school. From math and science, to foreign language and social studies homework is completed with greater accuracy. Written by notable experts, Encyclopaedia Britannica is the most trusted and authoritative resource for students of all ages. Britannica Student & Home is the most complete resource for students. It provides interactive study guides, exercises, activities, and useful tips to help students perform better in school.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

28 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars THE Encyclopedia!, September 4, 2008

By 

Sam Vaknin (Skopje, Macedonia) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Encyclopedia Britannica 2009 Student & Home Edition [Old Version] (DVD-ROM)

The Encyclopedia Britannica 2009 (established in 1768), both in its Ultimate (now also called "Student and Home") and Deluxe versions, builds on the success of its completely revamped previous editions in 2006-8. The rate of innovation in the last three versions was impressive and welcome. It continues apace in this rendition with Britannica Biographies (Great Minds and Leaders), Classical Music (500 audio files arranged by composer), and a great Workspace for Project Management (a kind of friendly digital den). Generous 6-12 months of free access to the myriad riches of the Britannica Online complete the package.

The Britannica comes bundled with an atlas (close to 1800 maps linked to articles and 287 World Data Profiles of individual countries and territories); the Merriam-Webster Dictionary and Thesaurus, augmented by a Spanish-English translation dictionary; classic articles from previous editions; eleven yearbooks; an Interactive Timeline with 4000+ indexed timeline entries; a Research Organizer; and a Knowledge Navigator (called The Brain or BrainStormer). All told, it offers a directory of more than 166,000 reviewed and vetted links to online content.

In its new form, the Britannica is as user-friendly as the Encarta. With a new A to Z Quick Search feature, monthly updates and the aforementioned 6-12 months of free access to its impressive powerhouse online Web site, it is bound to give the former tough competition.

The Britannica's newest interface is even more intuitive and uncluttered than previously and is great fun to use. It offers morsels of knowledge, some of it date-specific, appetizingly presented through a ticker tape of visuals that leisurely scrolls across the bottom of the screen plus highly edifying interactive tours of articles and attendant media.

When you enter even the first few letters of a term in the search box, it offers various options and is persistent: no need to click on the toolbar's "search" button every time you want to find something in this vast storehouse of knowledge. Moreover, the user can save search results onto handy "Virtual Notecards". Whole articles can be copied onto the seemingly inexhaustible Workspace.

The new Britannica's display is tab-based, avoiding the erstwhile confusing proliferation of windows with every move. Most importantly, articles appear in full, not in sections. This major improvement facilitates the finding of relevant keywords in and the printing of entire texts. These are only a few of the numerous alterations and enhancements.

Perhaps the most refreshing change is the Britannica's Update Center. Dozens of monthly updates and new, timely articles are made available online (subject to free registration). A special button alerts the user when an entry in the base product has been updated.

Regrettably, unlike in the Encarta, the updates cannot be downloaded to the user's computer or otherwise incorporated into the vast encyclopedia. Moreover, the product does not alert its user to the existence of completely new articles, only to updated ones. It takes a manual scan of the monthly lists to reveal newly added content.

Speaking of updates, one must not forget to dwell on the Britannica's unequalled yearbooks. Each annual volume contains the year in events, scientific developments, and everything you wanted to know about the latest in any and every conceivable field of human endeavor or nature. About 10,500 articles culled from the last 11 editions buttress and update the Encyclopedia's anyhow impressive offerings.

The Britannica provides considerably more text than any other extant encyclopedia, print or digital. But it has noticeably enhanced its non-textual content over the years (the 1994-7 editions had nothing or very little but words, words, and more words): it now boasts in excess of 22-30,000 images and illustrations (depending on the version) and 900 video and audio clips. This is not to mention the Britannica Classics: articles from Britannica's most famous contributors-from Sigmund Freud to Harry Houdini, Marie Curie to Orville Wright.

The Britannica fully supports serious research. It is a sober assemblage of first-rate essays, up to date bibliographies, and relevant multimedia. It is a desktop university library: thorough, well-researched, comprehensive, trustworthy.

The Britannica's 84-103,000 articles (depending on the version) are long and thorough, supported by impressive bibliographies, and written by the best scholars in their respective fields. The company's Editorial Board of Advisors reads like the who's who of the global intellectual and scientific community.

The Britannica is an embarrassment of riches. Users often find the wealth and breadth of information daunting and data mining is fast becoming an art form. This is why the Britannica incorporated the BrainStormer to cope with this predicament. But an informal poll I conducted online shows that few know how to deploy it effectively.

The Britannica also sports Student and Elementary versions of its venerable flagship product, replete with a Homework Helpdesk and interactive tutorials, but it is far better geared to tackle the information needs of adults and, even more so, professionals. It provides unequalled coverage of its topics. Ironically, this is precisely why the market positioning of the Britannica's Elementary and Student Encyclopedias is problematic: with Wikipedia and even the Encarta around, the Britannica's brand is distinctly adult and scholarly.

Still, the 2009 editions of both the Student and Elementary encyclopedias improve on the past in terms of both coverage and facilities: the Homework Helpdesk is a collection of useful homework resources including a video subject browse, online learning games and activities, online subject spotlights, and how-to documents on topics such as writing a book review. There are also Learning Games and Activities: hundreds of fun and interactive games and activities to help students with subjects like Math, Science, and Social Studies.

The current edition is fully integrated with the Internet. Apart from the updates, it offers additional and timely content and revisions on a dedicated Web site. The digital product includes a staggering number of links (165,808!) to third party content and articles on the Web. The GeoAnalyzer, which compares national statistical data and generates charts and graphs, is now Web-based and greatly enhanced.

The Britannica would do well to offer a browser add-on search bar and to integrate with desktop search tools from Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, and others. Currently it offers search results through Google but this requires the user to install add-ons or plug-ins and to go through a convoluted rite of passage. A seamless experience is in the cards. Users must and will be able to ferret content from all over - their desktop, their encyclopedias, and the Web - using a single, intuitive interface.

Some minor gripes:

The atlas, dictionary, and thesaurus incorporated in the Britannica are still surprisingly outdated. Why not use a more current - and dynamically updated - offering? What about dictionaries for specialty terms (medical or computer glossaries, for instance)?

Despite considerable improvement over the previous edition, the Britannica still consumes (not to say hogs) computer resource far in excess of the official specifications. This makes it less suitable for installation on older PCs and on many laptops. If you own a machine with anything earlier than Pentium 3 and less than 4 Gb of really free space - forget it!

The Britannica uses a new graphic and text renderer. On some systems, the user needs to modify his or her desktop settings to get rid of jagged fonts and blurry photos. The software also seriously conflicts with security applications (especially anti-virus and firewall products). This edition, though, is finally compatible with the latest QuickTime.

But that's it. Don't think twice. Run to the closest retail outlet (or surf to the Britannica's Web site) and purchase the 2009 edition now. It offers excellent value for money (less than $40, with a rebate) and significantly enhances you access to knowledge and wisdom accumulated over centuries all over the world. Sam Vaknin, author of "Malignant Self-love: Narcissism Revisited"

22 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars "Free" subscription requires a credit card! Auto-renewal., March 30, 2009

By 

Richard (Flagstaff, Az) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Encyclopedia Britannica 2009 Student & Home Edition [Old Version] (DVD-ROM)

At some point, after using this product for a while, I will revise this review. Meanwhile, I hope the one star rating will draw attention before folks commit to buying the Encyclopedia Britannica 2009 Student and Home Edition Ultimate Reference Suite.
This issue may not be important to you. But it will be to some, and I want to provide a heads-up.
I just purchased this and have installed it in my Mac, and as far as I can tell the installation went well. Next, I went online to register and sign up for the free one year access to Britannica Online. Britannica Online is a significant benefit of the purchase; it provides access to the full 32 volume Britannica and, I believe, articles from current periodicals, and more. This free subscription is mentioned twice here in the Amazon description, and it is visible on the larger image of the box. When you receive the software, you find this free benefit touted three times on the outside of the box. (On the box there is a tiny cross about the size of the dot over an "i", after the words announcing this free benefit, to indicate there is more information somewhere.) It is not until you've found your magnifying glass and read the two point type (really!) on the bottom of the box, or unsealed the box and read something inside, or attempted to register online, that you learn you must supply Britannica with your credit card number in order to receive this "free" subscription. Also, you will be automatically billed for another year at the end of the subscription unless you remember to cancel. Additionally, according to the FAQs on their subscriber services page, they will not notify you if the renewal price goes up before they bill your card. You are expected to look online somewhere where subscription rates are posted.
I guess I could have summed up my comment in a few sentences, but I'm annoyed. I don't want to give them my credit card number - I'm not buying anything from them. Did the publisher choose to keep an important piece of information obscure, information which could affect a consumer's decision to purchase? Well, I know this: I've lost some respect for the Encyclopedia Britannica. I don't like their business practices. We'll see about the software.

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars EB 2009, July 15, 2008

By 

A Customer - See all my reviews

This review is from: Encyclopedia Britannica 2009 Student & Home Edition [Old Version] (DVD-ROM)

Good product. Works very well on Vista. Articles are excellent. Brainstormer feature is outstanding. Atlas not as good as Encarta. It does not have as much functionality. Articles are much better than Encarta. Glad I purchased.