Microsoft Encarta Reference Library Premium 2005 captivates students of starting as young as 7 years old with an easy-to-use, up-to-date, multimedia encyclopedia and feature-rich reference tools to deliver a complete learning resource for home or school use.

Product: Encarta 2005 Reference Library Plus DVD ROM Company: Website: Estimated Street Price: $74.95 Review By: The Features Once again I have been asked to review Encarta, and this year Microsoft has already reached the 2005 edition. This year, the additions include Encarta Kids!, an online math tutor and more, so once again things have kept on improving. Here are some of the new features that have found their way into Encarta 2005: • New! Just for Kids With new encyclopedia content tailored to kids 7 to 12 years old, new Encarta Kids uses loads of pictures, large icons, and a simple, colorful interface to encourage exploration and discovery. An Online Math Tutor Available through a free subscription to MSN® Encarta Premium* through October 2005, the new Math Homework Help service helps give students the confidence to tackle even the toughest math assignments—always at their own pace—from basic multiplication to linear equations. In addition to Online Math Homework Help, the free subscription to MSN Encarta Premium provides students with access to Encarta content and tools from any PC. Get There Faster Our new Encarta Search bar helps you find the information you need now.

Embedded on the task bar, the new Encarta Search Bar can instantly find the encyclopedia information, dictionary look-up or the word you need in the Thesaurus. • Homework Done Already? Instead of homework avoidance and excuses, our new Premium Homework Center guides students from the first step through to successful completion of their assignments. Homework starters, literature guides and learning tools help give your child a leg-up. Installation and Settings Once again Encarta ships on a Single DVD, thankfully in an easy to store DVD box too, so you can dump the overly large cardboard box that contains the DVD box after you have installed it as it's a waste of space. You can either do a full install of the program which takes up about 4 GB of drive space, or just go for the option of installing the main files, this takes up around 200 MB of space and seems the best option; based on the assumption that you don't mind the DVD-ROM being in the drive all the time. Loading times of files are improved if it installed on the hard drive, but not enough to warrant the large space used.

Encarta Itself Review Quotes 'The main new section that has been added to Encarta 2005 above all others is 'Encarta Kids' and it is just that, for Kids. It uses large colourful icons that children love, has loads of pictures in place of the large amounts of text the regular Encarta has and is generally a good application for young kids to use and explore.' Once more Encarta Reference Library 2005 is filled full of various documents, topics, illustrations, sounds, video, 3D views and more. This is the best DVD encyclopedia around, but I have to say yet again, does it actually add enough to the library when compared to the previous 2004 edition?

Well first we have the usual Internet connected content, this has once again been improved with the web center increasing in size thanks to more sites being added. Included yet again is an one year of Encarta.com access as well through your passport account, this also needs to be used to download the weekly updates that come out for improving articles, adding more content and just generally keeping Encarta up to date. At the top of the Encarta layout are the main menus, they include the following: • File -- This allows you to print articles • Edit -- Find and Copy articles • View -- Change text sizes and captioning • Favorites -- Add articles to your favorites list • Features -- Access articles, maps, timelines etc • Tools -- Find, Voice Controls and settings can all be accessed from here. • Help -- Get easy access to help options. • Feedback -- From here you can report any article mistakes or just send in feedback The main area from which you search from is called 'Find' once you click on this option via the menu (the first time you load Encarta it is already on the side for you), a bar appears on the left hand side of the layout, from here you can enter letters/words to find items you are looking for.