Our Times: Multimedia Encyclopedia of the 20th Century
LIVE AND RELIVE THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
A Review of Our Times: Multimedia Encyclopedia of the 20th Century
by Judy Pozar
Our Times:Multimedia Encyclopedia of the 20th Century is much more than a compilation of facts and figures. It provides a context which enhances understanding of the information. Based on the best-selling book, Our Times: The Illustrated History of the 20th Century, the CD-ROM brings the 20th century to life through fascinating articles, essays, images, and video documentaries, narrated by James Earl Jones.
Our Times is a powerful, comprehensive, flexible, easy-to-use reference tool, ideal for students and history buffs. Using an intuitive, interactive timeline, users can choose a decade or year to explore. Each decade screen displays dramatic images representing each year of the decade. Users can peruse an original essay discussing the ideas and events which had the greatest impact on the world and society, or view a graphical portrayal of the state of the world at that time. They may choose to listen to one of three narrative tours, on culture, world affairs, and politics, or watch the decade video documentary.
From the year screens, users can select from numerous cross-referenced entries detailing the year’s most important events, as well as “A Moment From …” article that provides a cultural excerpt about that year. For example, the year 1961 includes an excerpt from a Life magazine article on family bomb shelters. Entries cover a wide range of categories: international events, business, religion and philosophy, arts and literature, popular culture, politics, science and technology, space and aviation, and sports. Nobel prizes and notable births and deaths are listed for each year.
For added breadth, and for information on topics within and beyond the 20th century, the Our Times CD-ROM also includes the complete Columbia Encyclopedia, Fifth Edition. In print, this is a large single volume, primarily text. It cannot compete with such multimedia encyclopedias as Grolier’s or Microsoft Encarta, but it provides information on a broad spectrum of subjects. Its advantages over its print version are, of course, the capabilities to search by category, time frame, and keywords, and to jump to related articles via hypertext links.
There were some flaws in these features, however. A search for “Miles Davis” returned an enormous number of references (including Bantu Languages!), most having nothing to do with this musician. After consulting the online help facility, I changed my search to “miles & davis,” but the references still included Antarctica (perhaps because it had the word “miles” in it), Emily Davies (ostensibly because her last name is pronounced “da-vis”), and Motion Pictures (which mentions Bette Davis). The hypertext links are not all as they should be either. While reading the entry on “Jazz” in the Columbia Encyclopedia, I clicked on the highlighted reference to Miles Davis, but this took me to the entry for the city of Davis, California.
The bookmark feature is useful. Each entry in both Our Times and The Columbia Encyclopedia can be marked for future reference. Sets of marked articles can be saved to the hard disk for later retrieval.
Schools and libraries will want to include Our Times Multimedia Encyclopedia of the 20th Century in their reference libraries. This title would also be a welcome addition to any history buff’s reference collection. It is a beautifully crafted and highly readable multimedia encyclopedia.
Multimedia Cafe Scorecard
| Product: | Our Times: Multimedia Encyclopedia of the 20th Century |
| Company: | Vicarious |
| Cost: | $69.95 |
System Requirements:
Macintosh:
68030 processor, System 7.1 or later,
13″ display with 256 colors and a minimum of 8 MB RAM CD-ROM drive,
hard drive with minimum 3MB free;
PC:
486 CPU,
Microsoft Windows 3.1 or later, 8 MB RAM, SVGA 640 x 480 color display,
CD-ROM drive, hard drive with minimum 3 MB free,
Sound Blaster-compatible sound card and speakers.
Breakdown:
Entertainment Value 3
Educational Value 4
Concept 3
Depth 4
Interface 4
Overall Score:
(* 0 rating, 0 votes)
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