Microsoft Encarta Africana 2000 on CD‐ROM is divided into the following sections: the Library of Black America, the Historical Timeline, the Music Timeline, the Civil Rights Chronology, Africana on Camera, Historic Sites in Africa, Africa to the Americas, Map of Africa, Virtual Tours, Topic Treks, and Web Links. By navigating through these sections one may encounter not only articles, but also audio clips and links to the WWW. Co‐editors Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Kwame Anthony Appiah, both professors of Afro American Studies, boast that Encarta Africana features nearly 6,000 of these articles, videos, maps, photographs, and audio clips, more than any other electronic encyclopedia available on the market.
The vast majority of the articles contained in Encarta Africana first appeared in the 2,000+ page reference book Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience, co‐edited by Gates and Appiah in 1999.
The new and improved Encarta Africana, first appearing in 1998, doubles its quantity and quality by adding the Timeline of African American Music, the Chronology of the Civil Rights Movement, and the Library of Black America. The best new feature of Encarta Africana is the “contents page.” The “contents page” becomes available as you retrieve articles through searching or browsing, thereby organizing relevant information about a subject or topic. It also contains outlines of each article, related articles, links to Web searches, multimedia clips, sidebars, and other enhancements that not only organize information but also provide access to broader and narrower subject areas.
The installation of this product is quite simple. Only 1 CD (Installation) is required for the installation of the software while the other CD (Africana One) is only necessary to retrieve video clips from the Virtual Tours and Africana on Camera. You are prompted when to exchange CDs. Constantly exchanging CDs is time consuming and annoying; this is one of the negative features of Encarta Africana.
At the startup of the program, you are presented with wonderful music, a simple menu, and a list of videos including a Tour of Encarta Africana and a Welcome video of Gates and Appiah. Although there are many choices, the menu is simple, and it’s apparent where to begin.
Encarta Africana contains a number of searching and browsing options. First, you may conduct keyword searches of the encyclopedia at large. The search box is part of the main menu and supports Boolean and proximity operators. If you wish to search for a particular kind of information, click in the box under “Choose a type of information” and then select a type of information, such as Images or Library of Black America. In addition, you may easily locate keywords in a given article or text. This search strategy, known as “find on this page,” highlights keywords in context. As you conduct a keyword search, you may also examine larger subject areas via the topic browser, a filtered list of the articles. Here you may use categories such as “place” and “time period” to begin a search. Unfortunately, this feature is not available with any other search options. Searching is simple and fast. Sources of material are instantly retrieved and listed as one types in the keywords. The topic browser provides the number of articles or “hits” that have been retrieved. One of the weaker features of searching Encarta Africana is the lack of controlled vocabulary. This problem, which is common to most electronic information resources, forces you to conduct more searches to find all of the relevant information. Inexperienced researchers may miss a lot of information this way.
Encarta Africana is not for older personal computers. If you intend to get the most out of it, your personal computer must have at least 16MB of RAM, 55 MB of free hard disk space, a 16‐bit sound card, and Internet access. If you’re looking to extend research to the Web, a 14.4 or higher baud modem, Internet access, and a Web browser are required. Needless to say, Encarta Africana takes up a great deal of space and is not appropriate for personal computers that lack multimedia hardware and software.
If you intend to venture out onto the Web with Web Links, then you may encounter another problem. If you have both Netscape Navigator and Microsoft Explorer browsers installed on your system, it will automatically launch you into Microsoft Explorer. If you prefer Netscape, the only way to avoid this problem is to delete Microsoft Explorer or make Netscape Navigator your default browser. Encarta Africana’s Web Link Feature contains many links to reputable institutions such as The Smithsonian that have well maintained Web sites (i.e. updated) that are reliable and authoritative. Unfortunately, only half of the Web sites include the source or author in brackets. I would recommend that all of the sites include such valuable information. It is quite helpful to know what organization is responsible for a Web site before getting launched on to the Web. Neither Microsoft nor the editors of Encarta Africana can control defunct sites or questionable content. In fact, Microsoft goes so far as to state “Microsoft can make no representation concerning the content of these sites, nor do the links to this site serve as an endorsement by Microsoft.”
One of the most impressive features of Encarta Africana is the Library of Black America, which includes nearly 7 million words. It is a collection of 120 works of fiction, biography, autobiography, narrative, poetry, and nonfiction by African‐American authors written between 1773 and 1918. This collection is searchable, and all keyword searches are highlighted in context. You are permitted to print single pages and have the option to cut and paste text to the research organizer. There is a Table of Contents for each text embedded with hyperlinks to individual chapters. Gates and Appiah have superbly selected a cross‐section of some of the most important works of Black America, that until now have been inaccessible to non‐scholars. Even though the content of this collection is outstanding, the structural and bibliographical integrity falls somewhat short. The library only offers access to the text and not the images of the pages, nor the images of illustrations, photographs, or drawings within these texts. The bibliographical integrity is lacking because there is no imprint information that would indicate the year, edition, or publisher of any of the texts in the collection. There is no documentation that users could cite other than the title and author of the text. Imprint information is a basic component of any encyclopedia (paper or digital) and should have been included.
Encarta Africana is simple and easy to navigate. Navigation arrows much like those found on Web browsers are prominently positioned to make browsing or searching effortless. The ever‐present menu at the head of each page allows users to get help, to change search strategies, or to take notes using the Research Organizer. This research organizer allows users to copy and paste images or text into a notepad. There is also a citation wizard that will automatically insert the citation for the copied material. This nice feature not only makes users more likely to cite Encarta Africana as a source, but it also stores citations into folders for future reference.
The documentation of Encarta Africana is scant. The box in which the CD‐ROM is enclosed includes much more information than the six pages of notes included with the CD. A small amount of space is devoted to Microsoft product support services that can aid users via the Web at http://support. microsoft.com/support or via telephone. “No‐charge” support is available with telephone toll charges. Pay‐per‐incident support is available for at a rate of $35 per incident. Paid support Text Telephone (TTY/TDD) is available for the hearing impaired.
Anyone interested in African and African‐American history on a recreational or scholarly level can benefit from Encarta Africana. For the first time, information in a variety of formats about Africa and African America is available from one source. Gates and Appiah have assembled a stellar cast of authoritative and international scholars who have contributed reliable and trustworthy information.
In spite of the shortcomings expressed thus far, Encarta Africana is outstanding because of its content and organization. The Library of Black America alone makes this electronic resource invaluable. This multimedia experience is fueled with audio clips of speeches and music as well as colorful backgrounds found in videos, articles, and texts. Encarta Africana is a reliable, interactive, and groundbreaking resource for users of all ages and educational backgrounds who want to know more about Africa as well as African America.
