World Book Encyclopedia 2004 Edition

Rating:
Summary: Excellent Encyclopedia
Review: I can't believe this Encyclopedia is so inexpensive. It is truly excellent. I bought this for my 4th grader and it has a ton of stuff to help students. There are tools to help with report writing, a "How to study" cd, "sticky notes" you can use to put notes into articles, an integrated dictionary... Well, you can read the list of features in the product description.

I really like that this encyclopedia is so easy to use. I like it much better than Encarta. The articles seem better, with more information than Encarta, too. The installation lets you copy the entire contents of disk 1 to hard drive (~700mb). After that, you only have to insert the second encyclopedia disk if you select something that requires it.

The "Surf the ages" feature is pretty cool. You get a webpage of news from assorted dates in history. I think my son will have a lot of fun with this since he is a history buff. There is also a monthly info summary (can't remember the exact name), but it gives you a single page with a lot of information relating to all kinds of stuff.

My son is doing a report on Thomas Edison for school. I looked him up and got a timeline of his life, a lengthy article on him with all kinds of references to areas of science and technology he influenced.

I then downloaded article updates off the web. There was one about recent Supreme Court rulings related to Affirmative Action. I followed that link, started reading the article and then followed another link into an entire history of african-americans.

There is a wealth of information in this encyclopedia and it is very easy to access. If you have kids, this is the encyclopedia to buy. The ability to easily cross-reference topics and follow links to get more in-depth info on any topic is awesome.

Rating:
Summary: Rip-off
Review: On the surface this looks like a good offer. The only review at the time gave it a 5-star rating, so no doubts that this was a good deal. BUT!!! The Online update service has been discontinued by World Book, so the data will quickly become out-of-date. I am looking for a better option - no more World Book for me!