The Encyclopedia of World Cultures on CD‐ROM features the full text of the 10 volume Encyclopedia of World Cultures. It describes more than 1,500 cultural groups across the globe and is the authoritative source for cross‐cultural, historical, political, religious, interdisciplinary, social, and economic information on virtually all cultures that have existed or exist during the twentieth century. The navigation bar appears on the top of every screen and allows the user to search the entire database by words or phrases, subject terms, religion, country, economy, language, or type of settlement; to search or choose a research topic, learn anthropological terms and concepts, or read an overview essay; to find a culture simply by searching through an alphabetical index of cultures; to find a culture by clicking on a series of maps to focus on a region; to view photos of various cultures by region; to search a glossary of terms; to go back to the main menu; or to search the help contents.
The search engine allows the user to search by a combination of country, religion, language, economy, settlements, keywords, or subject terms. The Boolean feature assists in both simple and advanced searches.
There are numerous photo clips and photographs scattered throughout the product. I found the cultures by region feature to be especially interesting, in that one can click on a searchable world map for cultures in certain regions of the world. This CD would make an excellent research tool for any school or university library and is geared toward students in the intermediate through college grade levels. It is easy to load and uninstall and comes with a 13‐page manual.
