CompuServe Messages

Frank, Thanks for your comments about US History on CD-ROM. When we first published it in late 1990, it was patterned after the Grolier's Encyclopedia because Grolier's seemed to know what they were doing (and still do!) and because the marketplace was demanding collections of books. US History was positioned as a natural buy for anyone who may have Grolier's and who has a strong interest in the history of our country. The positioning was good; the product has won several CD-ROM awards and is a consistent Top 10 bestseller. Our customers have indicated that putting a single book on a CD-ROM doesn't generally work. It's better to put one book in a book. Of course, US History has indices for word, author, subject, and title, so it is easy to find the subset of articles you want. If you're so inclined, you can also browse the word list (as well as the author, subject, and title lists) at random and "schmooze" the disc. Finally, you can look at each book in its entirety, so from that standpoint, you have 107 mini-CD-ROMs, each with one book on it. The text on US History is all in the public domain. But nearly none of this text is available electronically anywhere else. So one could consider it to be "value-added public domain." And of course, there are over 1,000 pictures and tables on the disc. Referring to Jerry Isdale's well-thought out comments, by using the search and find next capabilities one can develop a thread, making US History an enlightening interactive experience. Thanks again for your comments. Larry Shiller