Encarta or Britannica?The encyclopaedia giants on CD-Rom go head-to-head. Roger Plant adjudicates
Britannica seems a synonym for encyclopaedias, carrying that authority which a market leader can command long after it ceases to be earned. Until a few years ago, many conscientious families might still have considered investing in its 32 volumes. Yet by 1996, sales had dropped alarmingly.
What had changed was the arrival of encyclopaedias on CD-Rom. Microsoft’s Encarta fast became a market leader. Since 1995 an edition has been targeted at a British and Commonwealth audience, with British spelling, Commonwealth topics expanded and more parochial American topics reduced. In Britain, it sold for less than 50, and was updated yearly. With the Britannica at more than 1 000 a set, the most an owner could hope to add was an occasional supplement.
Encarta’s editorial staff not only update biographies of the living, but also keep abreast of political changes, revisions in geographical names, advances in science and technology and relevant progress in other disciplines.
Encyclopaedia Britannica, in its move to CD-Rom, has not had an English- based editorial staff for at least two years. While it shows cosmetic signs of rising to topicality, there are numerous areas where the text of the early 1970s has still not been updated.
Jacob Safra, the investor who bought the title in 1996, now offers Britannica on two CD-Roms, as well as a functional online version for a cheap monthly subscription; this is popular and users speak highly of it. Encarta also offers a reduced version online.
Encarta’s Reference Suite comes on six discs. It comprises the deluxe encyclopaedia, an atlas, a bookshelf (dictionaries, a thesaurus and a book of quotations) and a research organiser for projects. Encyclopaedia Britannica’s Multimedia Edition comprises two discs with an encyclopaedia and atlas.
On the surface, having six discs is a big plus for Encarta, but there is a downside: changing discs when the information you need is not on the disc in the drive. It is easier to find your way around in Encarta. For example, the opera singer Caruso could be found on Britannica only by typing in Caruso, Enrico, not Enrico Caruso. Encarta recognised all the variants.
Britannica lets you ask it questions, which Encarta does not. For example, if you ask, “Who is Caruso?”, it will refer you to a set of articles. But the filtering isn’t perfect and some articles seem to bear no specific relation to Caruso.
Encarta is much better at referring you to relevant material. Too often Britannica seems like a vast wood in which you are left to wander. It offers a large number of Internet links for some articles but nothing for others; Encarta seems to try to offer links from every article. In global terms Britannica claims 30 000 links compared with Encarta’s 19 500.
To test the encyclopaedias, we chose nine subjects and compared the coverage of each.
William Hazlitt
Both have short, rather run-of-the-mill biographies and appreciations of the 19th-century journalist, essayist and critic. Britannica’s is longer and a little more detailed on his life, mentioning the break-up of his marriage and the disastrous love affair which produced one of his best-known books. They reach different conclusions. Britannica describes Hazlitt as a writer “lacking conscious artistry or literary pretension”; Encarta says he was “famous for his lucidity and brilliance, in both style and content”, a judgment much nearer the mark; Britannica’s sounds rather out of date.
Britannica’s is the marginally more useful of two fairly rudimentary entries, though Encarta scores by offering the text of one of Hazlitt’s essays and a link to a website dealing with his life and work, but gets his date of birth wrong, which doesn’t inspire confidence. So, with scores out of 10, we’ll make that four to three to Encarta.
The planet Mercury
Britannica offers a variety of entries but doesn’t describe which each is; Encarta has the description in brackets. The text in Britannica is a bit skimpy and the graphics rather uninspiring. Encarta’s graphics are simply excellent, the text interesting and detailed; the information is also presented in table form. Best of all is a multimedia collage guiding you through the history of space. Encarta wins eight to four.
Adolf Hitler
Hitler’s life is a monumental subject, and desperately difficult to boil down. Britannica has a good go, with a lengthy essay dividing the key periods in his life and administration. It is well written, thoughtful, intelligent, with useful links. Encarta’s entry is shorter, less well cross-referenced, and its insistence that Hitler knew the war was lost in 1941 made us doubt its overall accuracy. It does offer a useful table of his life and has a recording of him speaking. Britannica directs you to a 17-second video clip with sound, but we couldn’t make it play. Britannica still wins seven to four.
Sylvia Plath
Britannica’s biography of the American poet is very brief, very dry. It offers 10 Internet links, but the ones we tried had either ceased to exist or had nothing to do with Plath. Encarta has a much fuller biography, a picture, and a brief recording of her reading from one of her poems. There was also an Internet link, but that too was unavailable. Encarta is clearly better here: the biography is longer, it feels like it was written more recently, it reflects her iconic status, you get to hear her voice. But there should be more. So five to two to Encarta, but with reservations.
The liver
Biology is not our strong point and our eyes glazed at the descriptions of how the portal vein carries venous blood to the liver, which manufactures blood serum proteins and metabolises nitrogenous waste products. Britannica is more detailed and slightly more technical; it also offers two useful colour diagrams; the Encarta version looks more like a painting by Francis Bacon. So six to three to Britannica.
Monty Python
We needed some light relief, but didn’t find much of it here. Encarta has a useful 200-word description of the “highly influential” comic team and a recording of part of the Dead Parrot sketch. Britannica has nothing. So an open goal for Encarta: four nil.
Irish Potato Famine
Intelligent treatments in both. Encarta concentrates on the political implications – the repeal of the Corn Laws and the fall of Robert Peel – and has an appendix with letters from Peel to his home secretary. Britannica is better at the Irish context, emphasises its gravity (“the worst famine to occur in Europe in the 19th century”) and doesn’t isolate the events of 1846 (Corn Law repeal) from the famine years, 1845 to 1849. Encarta’s picture of an Irish peasant family feels like a space filler: six to two to Britannica.
Tyrannosaurus rex
Brief, to the point entries in both. Encarta reckons it weighed four tonnes; Britannica says eight tons. Any advance? Britannica has a photograph of a skeleton; Encarta a more fanciful picture of a Spielbergian lizard. A bit of a disappointment all round: four all.
Henry VIII
Britannica’s lengthy assessment by the late Professor Geoffrey Elton is all there, but rather flat. Encarta barely tries to compete text-wise, offering a brief run-through in which the key events of the 16th century pass so fast as to leave you breathless. It tries to break away from the essay mode by offering some primary materials – an eve-of-execution letter from Sir Thomas More to his daughter – and has a table of key dates and a tableau of the six wives.
But it is too superficial for anyone who knows something of Henry’s life and too compressed for anyone who knows nothing. A spiritless five to four to Britannica.
Microsoft’s Encarta Reference Suite, R665; Encyclopaedia Britannica’s Multimedia Edition, R1 210