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Coverage of major scientific topics including animal life, biosciences, chemistry, earth and atmospheric sciences, energy sources and power technology, mathematics and information sciences, materials and engineering sciences, medicine, anatomy, and physiology, physics, plant sciences, space and planetary sciences. Contains over 7,000 articles contributed by more than 250 experts.

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Library Journal Review

This, the seventh edition of a well-known reference work, now appears in a two-volume format. That in itself is probably incentive enough to encourage replacement of the unwieldy sixth edition, published in 1983. Since there is little doubt that most local libraries have a copy of a scientific encyclopedia, the only question is whether this new edition has kept pace with the knowledge explosion. It has. The greatest changes are exactly where one would expect to find them. There are whole new sections on computer-related topics, such as local area networks (LANs) and machine vision; similarly, developments in materials science, such as the section on semiconductors, are given expanded coverage. Perhaps the most satisfying revisions are those on planetary astronomy, which incorporate the new information garnered by the Voyager fly-bys of the outer planets. Thus, the article on Uranus has been expanded from two to six pages, enough to provide a solid introduction for a student. One drawback is that certain broad topics are difficult to find; in mathematics, for example, there was no apparent entry for either chaos, catastrophe theory, or dynamical systems. Additionally, there is almost nothing on history of science or biography of scientists. Thus, if one looks up Fermi, one finds the definition of a unit of length but no mention that it was named after a person. Similarly, there is an article entitled ``Evolution,'' but nothing under Darwin. Nevertheless, this is probably the best scientific encyclopedia available.Harold D. Shane, Baruch Coll., CUNY (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

CHOICE Review

To the editorial content of the print version of the eighth edition (2v., 1995), this CD adds a limited number of new and revised articles. It is easy to install and use; instruction and help are well conceived and presented. The interface includes a number of windows that are not all open at the same time. The basic windows are Document, which displays the text of the encyclopedia; Content, which lists entry headings in alphabetical order; and Search, which provides search capabilities and displays results. When users click on links to illustrations, two new windows appear partially overlaying the existing windows to display illustrations and legends. Search results show in the Search window the headings for each article that contains the search term(s), plus a separate line for each appearance of the search word(s) within the article. Clicking on any line takes users to the specific section that contains the line of text. An advanced search utility provides Boolean search capabilities. The interface is easy to use; when difficulties arise, Help windows are available. This excellent resource makes full use of hypertext to create extensive cross-references and connections between graphics and text. The quality of the interface and electronic utilities complement the quality of content. Libraries that have decided to provide electronic versions of basic reference tools will want to acquire this title, but it need not be purchased just to update the eighth edition. T. G. Kirk; Earlham College

Booklist Review

Van Nostrand's is a shorter and not-as-useful competitor to the McGraw-Hill Encyclopedia. Like McGraw-Hill, it covers all fields of science from animal life to space exploration. Also like McGraw-Hill, entries are written with the nonscientist in mind and are approachable by the informed adult reader. Unlike McGraw-Hill, entries tend to be quite short and present fact more than theory. Van Nostrand's is a good place to look for quick facts, whereas McGraw-Hill will give more background material. However, Van Nostrand's is much less expensive and is a good purchase for small libraries that cannot afford McGraw-Hill.