Grzimek’s, a classic reference source, goes digital
Posted by: Sue Polanka
Gale/Cengage announced today the launch of the digital Grzimek’s Animal Life Encyclopedia. Grzimek’s covers over 4,000 species and includes thousands of images, maps, videos, audio clips, and links to articles and real-time web sites. According to the press release, features of the newproduct include:
• Articles written by scientists and subject experts, peer-reviewed by world-renowned authorities and selected for inclusion by an expert editorial board
• Search Assist, Animal Finder and Quick Facts tools allowing the user to quickly find animals by common or scientific name and provide a snapshot of the species
• ReadSpeaker technology allows for text-to-speech transfer of articles
• Translation feature includes 11 languages
• “Threatened Species Ticker” and related links encourage browsing of new topics
In addition to the value added features, the digi version will save you some shelf space too (17 volumes), but it does take your one time print purchase to an annual subscription. I think this will be a trend with larger reference sets/topics. Portions of Grzimek’s may also end up as search engine results, leading folks to encyclopedia.com, acquired by Gale in 2008. Check out the Booklist Online article about encyclopedia.com features for more information.
