by Ari Davis

SPECIFIC ONLINE ENCYCLOPEDIAS

Good Examples:

Britannica Online: http://www.eb.com

Britannica Online, is one of the most well known electronic conversions to the online encyclopedia genre. Britannica.com certainly delivers pay dirt for those seeking free but authoritative information on the Web. One of the mysteries of e-commerce is that the free Britannica.com actually offers more information and more functionality than the print based version. While both versions provide more than 72,000 current encyclopedia articles, 10,000 images and illustrations, the searchable contents of Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, and links to more than 125,000 additional Web resources, Britannica.com also offers links to current articles from more than 70 popular periodicals (Newsweek, History Today, Sports Illustrated), as well as basic title and author information from the Books in Print database. The online version also seems easier to search and navigate.

Microsoft Encarta: http://www.encarta.com

Microsoft's Encarta reference encyclopedia has become a staple in the home library, and a subset of the Encarta Encyclopedia CD-ROM / DVD, together with the Encarta World Dictionary and a simple atlas, is available free on the Encarta Web page. A basic search box provides quick access to approximately 12,000 encyclopedia articles with linked images and additional Web resources. Encarta's brief articles are sufficient for quick look-ups, but the site is often jammed with traffic and slow. In extensive exploration of a topic, one usually runs into content that is restricted to registered users who have purchased Encarta disc products. The site is very informative and a lot of multimedia content is available.

Columbia Encyclopedia: http://www.bartleby.com

Bartleby.com is graced with useful general encyclopedias and offers one of the strongest challenges to Britannica.com as purveyors of free content. Bartleby's of the unabridged Columbia Encyclopedia includes 50,000 short articles about people, places, events, and ideas. Though the entries seldom extend to more than a few sentences, the richly hyperlinked text (more than 80,000 cross-references are claimed) and up-to-date coverage make this encyclopedia an excellent first stop for the odd fact or date. Many tables, on topics such as constellations or Roman emperors, are included. They only offer plain text tables and provide very little graphics, illustrations, maps, or photographs and it is rare to see the occasional video or sound clip with their articles.