Encyclopedia Britannica 2007 Deluxe DVD

Reviewed by Mike Hubbartt

Encyclopedia Britannica has been around a long time. The printed versions cost quite a bit, but helped many a student through rough homework assignments. When the encyclopedia finally made it to the computer, it was clear it found the appropriate market for the material. Reference materials need regular updates, and the high costs of reprinting are avoided when the distribution media are CDs or DVDs. The new Encyclopedia Britannica for 2007 is $29.95 on CD and $39.95 on DVD, a true bargain compared to $1395 for a printed set of the encyclopedia.

Older versions of the encyclopedia are nice, but writers need current research information so it was easy to justify the expense to pick up the 2007 Deluxe DVD edition. Installing Britannica 2007 was simple, however it did not look for an earlier version to remove or install over – a minor inconvenience but worth mentioning for those with limited hard drive space. The 2007 DVD version has 82,000+ articles, 166,000+ magazine and web links, 700+ video clips, and includes Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary and Thesaurus. Writers, fiction or non-fiction, will appreciate the Atlas and Time line charts.

The only issue I had was after going to the Explore main page to watch some of the videos and noticed a probable mistake. Under the title for the page (Explore), the text was “Take an exhilarating ride through media, country statistics, classic Britannica articles, and our coverage of the events of 2005”. 2005 for the 2007 product? Granted I bought the product in the fall of 2006, but shouldn’t a reference product for 2007 have 2006 titles?

Conclusion I will continue to update to the newest version of this application each year, and recommend others do as well. It is reasonably priced and packed with valuable and reliable data.

Recommendation: At this price, a good buy.