Information retrieval strategies in McGraw‐Hill's Multimedia Encyclopedia of Mammalian Biology

The Multimedia Encyclopedia of Mammalian Biology CD‐ROM was published by McGraw‐Hill in September 1992. It has been designed for use primarily at undergraduate level. Text, images, sound and movie clips and numerical information (data) can be accessed on the disc. In this article the concept of Resource Priority, allowing priority to be given to any one of these media types, is described. The principal methods of using the Encyclopedia (Browse and Search) are described. The working of the four hierarchical Browsers is outlined, together with the operation of ‘Linked mode’. The methods used to index the data to the Browsers is also discussed and examples of how the disc may be used are given. The text search features available on the disc are also described. These include simple text search, using boolean operators, and the ability to search the disc not according to the text itself, but using the indexing structures which underpin the Browsers. Attention is drawn to the implications of this approach for structuring information and upon the costs of developing commercial titles.