Where can I find reviews and opinions online for Encyclopedia Britannica 2009 Student & Home Edition
Customers on Amazon are essentially split. Negatives include installation difficulties, rebate problems, and the fact that you need to provide a credit card for the free year subscription to the Encyclopedia Britannica. Which means it will automatically bill you after the first year, unless you cancel. Positives include the vast amount of information, and the fact that it’s geared towards students.
http://www.amazon.com/Encyclopedia-Britannica-2009-Student-Home/product-reviews/B00192D1HM/ref=cm_cr_dp_all_helpful?ie=UTF8&coliid=&showViewpoints=1&colid=&sortBy=bySubmissionDateDescending
This is my opinion, but whenever comparing something like this product to online services like Google, it is very important to remember that much of the information available online is not verified, and in many cases is wrong. This is especially important for students, because teachers prefer to see valid citations.
April 20th, 2010 at 2:55 pm
There are 18 reviews here : http://www.amazon.com/Encyclopedia-Britannica-2009-Student-Home/dp/B00192D1HM/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=software&qid=1265542965&sr=8-1-catcorr
18 Reviews
5 star: (7)
4 star: (2)
3 star: (2)
2 star: (1)
1 star: (6)
It seems that people are divided by this product.
References :
April 20th, 2010 at 3:15 pm
Customer Reviews:
5.0 out of 5 stars THE Encyclopedia!, September 4, 2008
By Sam Vaknin "author of Malignant Self Love – N… (Skopje, Macedonia)
The Encyclopedia Britannica 2009 (established in 1768), both in its Ultimate (now also called "Student and Home") and Deluxe versions, builds on the success of its completely revamped previous editions in 2006-8. The rate of innovation in the last three versions was impressive and welcome. It continues apace in this rendition with Britannica Biographies (Great Minds and Leaders), Classical Music (500 audio files arranged by composer), and a great Workspace for Project Management (a kind of friendly digital den). Generous 6-12 months of free access to the myriad riches of the Britannica Online complete the package.
The Britannica comes bundled with an atlas (close to 1800 maps linked to articles and 287 World Data Profiles of individual countries and territories); the Merriam-Webster Dictionary and Thesaurus, augmented by a Spanish-English translation dictionary; classic articles from previous editions; eleven yearbooks; an Interactive Timeline with 4000+ indexed timeline entries; a Research Organizer; and a Knowledge Navigator (called The Brain or BrainStormer). All told, it offers a directory of more than 166,000 reviewed and vetted links to online content.
In its new form, the Britannica is as user-friendly as the Encarta. With a new A to Z Quick Search feature, monthly updates and the aforementioned 6-12 months of free access to its impressive powerhouse online Web site, it is bound to give the former tough competition.
The Britannica’s newest interface is even more intuitive and uncluttered than previously and is great fun to use. It offers morsels of knowledge, some of it date-specific, appetizingly presented through a ticker tape of visuals that leisurely scrolls across the bottom of the screen plus highly edifying interactive tours of articles and attendant media.
When you enter even the first few letters of a term in the search box, it offers various options and is persistent: no need to click on the toolbar’s "search" button every time you want to find something in this vast storehouse of knowledge. Moreover, the user can save search results onto handy "Virtual Notecards". Whole articles can be copied onto the seemingly inexhaustible Workspace.
The new Britannica’s display is tab-based, avoiding the erstwhile confusing proliferation of windows with every move. Most importantly, articles appear in full, not in sections. This major improvement facilitates the finding of relevant keywords in and the printing of entire texts. These are only a few of the numerous alterations and enhancements.
Perhaps the most refreshing change is the Britannica’s Update Center. Dozens of monthly updates and new, timely articles are made available online (subject to free registration). A special button alerts the user when an entry in the base product has been updated.
Regrettably, unlike in the Encarta, the updates cannot be downloaded to the user’s computer or otherwise incorporated into the vast encyclopedia. Moreover, the product does not alert its user to the existence of completely new articles, only to updated ones. It takes a manual scan of the monthly lists to reveal newly added content.
Speaking of updates, one must not forget to dwell on the Britannica’s unequalled yearbooks. Each annual volume contains the year in events, scientific developments, and everything you wanted to know about the latest in any and every conceivable field of human endeavor or nature. About 10,500 articles culled from the last 11 editions buttress and update the Encyclopedia’s anyhow impressive offerings.
The Britannica provides considerably more text than any other extant encyclopedia, print or digital. But it has noticeably enhanced its non-textual content over the years (the 1994-7 editions had nothing or very little but words, words, and more words): it now boasts in excess of 22-30,000 images and illustrations (depending on the version) and 900 video and audio clips. This is not to mention the Britannica Classics: articles from Britannica’s most famous contributors-from Sigmund Freud to Harry Houdini, Marie Curie to Orville Wright.
2.0 out of 5 stars Buggy but no tech support site, September 12, 2008
By F. Kelly Dougherty
I have used previous versions and been pleased with them. But this 2009 edition installation has stopped twice on "installing… busansbo.ttf" and refused to continue. I can’t find any "service" or "tech support" site. I suggest you continue using your previous year’s version — this one isn’t ready for prime time yet.
References :
http://www.amazon.com/Encyclopedia-Britannica-2009-Student-Home/dp/B00192D1HM/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1249776698&sr=8-1
April 20th, 2010 at 3:38 pm
Customers on Amazon are essentially split. Negatives include installation difficulties, rebate problems, and the fact that you need to provide a credit card for the free year subscription to the Encyclopedia Britannica. Which means it will automatically bill you after the first year, unless you cancel. Positives include the vast amount of information, and the fact that it’s geared towards students.
http://www.amazon.com/Encyclopedia-Britannica-2009-Student-Home/product-reviews/B00192D1HM/ref=cm_cr_dp_all_helpful?ie=UTF8&coliid=&showViewpoints=1&colid=&sortBy=bySubmissionDateDescending
This is my opinion, but whenever comparing something like this product to online services like Google, it is very important to remember that much of the information available online is not verified, and in many cases is wrong. This is especially important for students, because teachers prefer to see valid citations.
References :
http://www.amazon.com/Encyclopedia-Britannica-2009-Student-Home/product-reviews/B00192D1HM/ref=cm_cr_dp_all_helpful?ie=UTF8&coliid=&showViewpoints=1&colid=&sortBy=bySubmissionDateDescending