Examines the efficacy and utility of the National Geographic Society's Mammals Multimedia Encyclopedia, an interactive multimedia CD-ROM, used by 12-year-old elementary students as the principal source for a summary paper. Existing research, project methodology, student information seeking and recording strategies, form of information accessed,…

Reports on research into the information-seeking habits of primary school children conducted under operational conditions. Findings reveal: the novice users favored browsing over analytic search strategies, although they showed some sophistication in construction of the latter; online help was ignored; and the children demonstrated a very high…

Describes a study comparing information retrieval from print and CD-ROM versions of Compton's Encyclopedia. Forty-eight sixth-grade students searched four questions in both versions. The results showed that the searches took the same amount of time in both. The novice searchers were able to use an information retrieval system with minimal…