Provides brief company profiles and describes sales methods and electronic publishing ventures for six encyclopedia publishers: Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc.; World Book; Grolier; the P.F. Collier encyclopedia division of Macmillan Publishing; Funk & Wagnalls; and Standard Educational Corp. (MES)

Reviews the history and development of the Dewey Decimal Classification, including the recent purchase of rights by OCLC and the production of a digitalized version. The contents and organization of the most recent edition are described and evaluated. (one reference) (CLB)

Provides critical reviews of four online databases: (1) Quotations Database, available through DIALOG and CompuServe; (2) Consumer Reports, through Prodigy, CompuServe, and Nexis; (3) HealthNet, from CompuServe; and (4) encyclopedias through America Online, CompuServe, GEnie, and DELPHI. Special features of access techniques or content of the…

Provides a brief overview of CD-ROM products that emulate a library's print collection. Highlights include reference works, including "Microsoft Bookshelf" and "Toolworks Reference Library"; the "New Grolier Electronic Encyclopedia"; periodicals and news services, including "Magazine Rack" and "Front…

Summarizes the storage capacity, advantages, disadvantages, hardware configurations, and costs of CD-ROMs. Several available titles are described, including "Books in Print," literature study guides, the works of Shakespeare, a historical almanac of "Time Magazine" articles, a scientific dictionary and encyclopedia, and a…

Examines six nonlinear video editing systems with dual-stream M-JPEG engines and a wide range of real-time titles, graphics, transitions, and DVEs (three are Mac-based: Avid Xpress, Avid MCXpress, Discreet Logic and three run on Windows: Fast Video Machine, Media 100xr, Scitex StrataSphere). Includes a table detailing capabilities, graphics,…

Reviews strengths and weaknesses of five optical character recognition (OCR) software packages used to digitize paper documents before publishing on the Internet. Outlines options available and stages of the conversion process. Describes the learning experience of Eurotext, a United Kingdom-based electronic libraries project (eLib). (PEN)

Describes the growing number of dictionaries available to reference librarians, discusses factors that have led to the need for more dictionaries, and provides buying guidelines to help in selection decisions. Electronic versions of various dictionaries are described, and a sidebar examines the "American Heritage Dictionary" revisions.…

Discusses questions to consider and features to look for in selecting a CD-ROM encyclopedia. Reviews Encyclopaedia Britannica CD 98 Multimedia Edition, Compton's Interactive Encyclopedia 1998, Microsoft Encarta 98 Encyclopedia, and Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia 1998. Contact information, price, and system requirements are listed. (JAK)

This book argues that computers can revolutionize American education and resolve its problems if they are used as private tutors to provide effective, individualized instruction, especially in developing literacy. The book, located at a Web site, is characterized as unwieldy to read right from the computer. (SLD)

The seven articles in this symposium review the Office of Technology Assessment report, Informing the Nation: Federal Information Dissemination in an Electronic Age. Symposium contributors comment on the recommendations and conclusions of the report, and offer suggestions to improve the federal information policy system. (CLB)

Reviews opportunities and market strategies for doing business on the Internet for businesses and customers in the information industry, and discusses uses of the Internet in the library and education field. Topics include: merchandising online electronic publishing; book sales; newspaper and periodical publishing; and selling products, computer…

Reviews 30 new resources for environmental information, including databases produced by government agencies, universities, private organizations, and others; and Internet resources, including listserv discussion groups, databases accessed through gopher and World Wide Web, electronic journals, bulletin boards, online services, computer disks, and…

Reviews of Compton's Multimedia Encyclopedia, New Grolier's Electronic Encyclopedia, and World Book's Information Finder are based on the 1990 editions. It is noted that all three publishers have announced plans to release annual revisions to their discs. The description of each of the products includes critiques of the search program, the…

Reviews CD-ROM encyclopedias to guide librarians and teachers in decision making. Encyclopedias are divided into two groups: mass market for ages 9 and up, and academic for ages 14 and above. A table lists products with addresses and Web sites, as well as information on price, minimum specs, number of articles, Internet connection, strengths, and…