Microsoft Bookshelf is a discontinued reference collection introduced in 1987 as part of Microsoft 's extensive work in promoting CD-ROM technology as a distribution medium for electronic publishing . The original MS-DOS version showcased the massive storage capacity of CD-ROM technology, and was accessed while the user was using one of 13 different word processor programs that Bookshelf supported. Subsequent versions were produced for Windows and became a commercial success as part of the Microsoft Home brand. It was often bundled with personal computers as a cheaper alternative to the Encarta Suite . The Encarta Deluxe Suite / Reference Library versions also bundled Bookshelf.
48-573: The original 1987 edition contained: Titles in non-US versions of Bookshelf were different. For example, the 1997 UK edition (Bookshelf British Reference Collection) included the Chambers Dictionary, Bloomsbury Treasury of Quotations, and Hutchinson Concise Encyclopedia. The Windows release of Bookshelf added a number of new reference titles, including The Concise Columbia Encyclopedia and an Internet Directory . Other titles were added and some were dropped in subsequent years. By 1994,
96-459: A Homework Center and Chart Maker . Encarta 's Visual Browser , available since the 2004 version, presented a user with a list of related topics making them more discoverable. A collection of 32 Discovery Channel videos were also later added. Encarta 2005 introduced another program called Encarta Kids aimed at children to make learning fun. Encarta also included a trivia game called "MindMaze" (accessible through Ctrl+Z) in which
144-493: A planetarium , but instead had a small interactive constellation -only map. In addition to database generated maps, many other illustrative maps in Encarta ("Historical Maps") were drawn by artists. Some more advanced maps were interactive : for example, the large African map for Africana could display information such as political boundaries or the distribution of African flora . Robert McHenry , while Editor-in-Chief of
192-498: A skunkworks project , these developers worked secretly with Multimedia Division developers so that the engine would be usable for more ambitious multimedia applications. Thus they integrated a multimedia markup language , full text search , and extensibility using software objects , all of which are commonplace in modern internet browsing. In 1992, Microsoft started selling the Bookshelf engine to third-party developers, marketing
240-555: A brief period a separate product known as Encarta Africana which was an encyclopedia of black history and culture. Starting with the 2001 version, it was integrated into the main Encarta Reference Suite. Encarta 2002 and onward featured 3D Virtual Tours of ancient structures, for example the Acropolis ; 2D panoramic images of world wonders or major cities; and a virtual flight feature which allowed users to fly
288-522: A feature of Microsoft Student. Although it was possible to purchase only the Encarta encyclopedia separately, Microsoft Student bundles together Encarta Premium with Microsoft Math (a graphing-calculator program) and Learning Essentials, an add-in which provides templates for Microsoft Office . In addition, the Deluxe and Reference Library editions were discontinued: absorbed into a new, more comprehensive Premium package. Encarta 's user interface
336-451: A global geographic information system database on demand. When a user used the copy and paste function of Microsoft Windows on Encarta on more than five words, Encarta automatically appended a copyright boilerplate message after the paste. Early in 2005, Encarta's editor-in-chief at the time, Gary Alt, announced that the online Encarta started to allow users to suggest changes to existing articles. Encarta 's content
384-449: A link, each entry may include the title of the website, and a description of its contents. In most web directories, the entries are about whole websites, rather than individual pages within them (called "deep links"). Websites are often limited to inclusion in only a few categories. There are two ways to find information on the Web: by searching or browsing . Web directories provide links in
432-495: A multimedia encyclopedia. Encarta was able to use various Microsoft technologies because it was extensible with software components for displaying unique types of multimedia information. For example, a snap in map engine is adapted from its MapPoint software. The hypertext and search engine used by Encarta also powered Microsoft Bookshelf . Encarta used database technologies to generate much of its multimedia content. For example, Encarta generated each zoomable map from
480-487: A quotations section in Encarta that links to relevant articles and people) and the Internet Directory, although the directory is now obsolete since many of the sites listed in offline directories no longer exist. Bookshelf 1.0 used a proprietary hypertext engine that Microsoft acquired when it bought the company Cytation in 1986. Also used for Microsoft Stat Pack and Microsoft Small Business Consultant, it
528-589: A structured list to make browsing easier. Many web directories combine searching and browsing by providing a search engine to search the directory. Unlike search engines, which base results on a database of entries gathered automatically by web crawler , most web directories are built manually by human editors. Many web directories allow site owners to submit their site for inclusion, and have editors review submissions for fitness. Web directories may be general in scope, or limited to particular subjects or fields. Entries may be listed for free, or by paid submission (meaning
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#1732801413230576-506: A virtual airplane over a coarsely generated artificial landscape area. Version 2002 also introduced the ability to install the entire encyclopedia locally to the hard disk drive to prevent frequent swapping of discs, and it updated far more often than its predecessors, with a rate of nearly 3–4 updates per week compared to the monthly updates that were used in prior versions of Encarta. Encarta 2003 incorporated literature guides and book summaries, foreign language translation dictionaries,
624-414: Is a tedious and time-consuming job and is often outsourced by webmasters . Bid for Position directories , also known as bidding web directories, are paid-for-inclusion web directories where the listings of websites in the directory are ordered according to their bid amount. They are special in that the more a person pays, the higher up the list of websites in the directory they go. With the higher listing,
672-514: Is the oldest web directory. Most of the directories are general in on scope and list websites across a wide range of categories, regions and languages. But some niche directories focus on restricted regions, single languages, or specialist sectors. One type of niche directory with a large number of sites in existence is the shopping directory . Shopping directories specialize in the listing of retail e-commerce sites. Examples of well-known general web directories are Yahoo! Directory (shut down at
720-563: The Encyclopædia Britannica , criticized Encarta for differences in factual content between national versions of Encarta , accusing Microsoft of "pandering to local prejudices" instead of presenting subjects objectively. An article written by Bill Gates addressed the nature of writing encyclopedias for different regions. Before the emergence of the World Wide Web for information browsing, Microsoft recognized
768-617: The Brazilian Portuguese version was introduced in 1999 and suspended in 2002. The Spanish version was somewhat smaller than the English one, at 42,000 articles. In 2000, the full Encarta content became available on the World Wide Web to subscribers, with a subset available for free to anyone. In 2006, Websters Multimedia, a Bellevue, Washington subsidiary of London-based Websters International Publishers, took over maintenance of Encarta from Microsoft. The last version
816-543: The Encarta trademark in various languages, including German , French , Spanish , Dutch , Italian , Portuguese and Japanese . Localized versions contained contents licensed from national sources and different amounts of content than the full English version. For example, the Dutch-language version had content from the Dutch Winkler Prins encyclopedia. In March 2009, Microsoft announced it
864-860: The English-language version also contained the Columbia Dictionary of Quotations ; The Concise Columbia Encyclopedia ; the Hammond Intermediate World Atlas ; and The People's Chronology . By 2000, the collection came to include the Encarta Desk Encyclopedia , the Encarta Desk Atlas , the Encarta Style Guide and a specialized Computer and Internet Dictionary by Microsoft Press . Microsoft Bookshelf
912-788: The "Excellence" winners of the BYTE Awards, stating that it "is the first substantial application of CD-ROM technology" and "a harbinger of personal library systems to come". Web directory A web directory or link directory is an online list or catalog of websites . That is, it is a directory on the World Wide Web of (all or part of) the World Wide Web. Historically, directories typically listed entries on people or businesses, and their contact information; such directories are still in use today. A web directory includes entries about websites, including links to those websites, organized into categories and subcategories. Besides
960-409: The Bookshelf engine had several key differences. Unlike Hypercard files, Bookshelf files required compilation and complex markup codes. This made the files more difficult to pirate, addressing a key concern of early electronic publishers. Furthermore, Bookshelf's engine was designed to run as fast as possible on slow first-generation CD-ROM drives, some of which required as much as a half-second to move
1008-446: The computer industry. Encarta also supported closed captioning for the hearing impaired. A separate program, called Encarta Research Organizer was included in early versions for gathering and organizing information and constructing a Word document-based report. Later versions included Encarta Researcher , a browser plugin to organize information from Encarta articles and web pages into research projects. Content copied from Encarta
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#17328014132301056-440: The directory (at the risk of introducing lower-quality, less objective entries). Another direction taken by some web directories is the paid for inclusion model. This method enables the directory to offer timely inclusion for submissions and generally fewer listings as a result of the paid model. They often offer additional listing options to further enhance listings, including features listings and additional links to inner pages of
1104-466: The drive head. Such hardware constraints made Hypercard impractical for high-capacity CD-ROMs. Bookshelf also had full text searching capability, which made it easy to find needed information. Collaborating with DuPont , the Microsoft CD-ROM division developed a Windows version of its engine for applications as diverse as document management , online help , and a CD-ROM encyclopedia . In
1152-817: The end of 2014) and DMOZ (shut down on March 14, 2017). DMOZ was significant due to its extensive categorization and large number of listings and its free availability for use by other directories and search engines. However, a debate over the quality of directories and databases still continues, as search engines use DMOZ's content without real integration, and some experiment using clustering . There have been many attempts to make building web directories easier, such as using automated submission of related links by script, or any number of available PHP portals and programs. Recently, social software techniques have spawned new efforts of categorization, with Amazon.com adding tagging to their product pages. Directories have various features in their listings, often depending upon
1200-939: The exception of Encarta Japan which was discontinued on December 31, 2009. Existing MSN Encarta Premium (part of MSN Premium ) subscribers were refunded. The demise of Encarta was widely attributed to competition from the free and user-generated Misplaced Pages , which grew to be larger than Encarta from its early beginnings in 2001 due to the popularization by web search services like Google . Encarta 's standard edition included approximately 50,000 articles, with additional images, videos and sounds. The premium editions contained over 62,000 articles and other multimedia content, such as 25,000 pictures and illustrations, over 300 videos and animations, and an interactive atlas with 1.8 million locations. Its articles were integrated with multimedia content and could include links to websites selected by its editors. Encarta 's articles in general were less lengthy and more summarized than
1248-482: The globe surface or in a tabular form, different sized cities, various geological or human-made features and reference lines in a map. The maps contained hyperlinks to related articles ("Map Trek") and also supported a "Dynamic Sensor" that provides the latitude , longitude , place name , population and local time for any point on the globe. Encarta also generated a visible-light moon atlas with names of major craters and hyperlinks. However, it did not include
1296-409: The importance of having an engine that supported a multimedia markup language , full text search, and extensibility using software objects. The hypertext display, hyperlinking and search software was created by a team of CD-ROM Division developers in the late 1980s who designed it as a generalized engine for uses as diverse as interactive help , document management systems and as ambitious as
1344-605: The late 1990s. Later that decade, Microsoft added content from Collier's Encyclopedia and New Merit Scholar's Encyclopedia from Macmillan into Encarta after purchasing them. Thus the final Microsoft Encarta can be considered the successor of the Funk and Wagnalls , Collier , and New Merit Scholar encyclopedias. None of these formerly successful encyclopedias remained in print for long after being merged into Encarta . Microsoft introduced several regional versions of Encarta localized for international markets. For example,
1392-465: The listed website. These options typically have an additional fee associated but offer significant help and visibility to sites and/or their inside pages. Today submission of websites to web directories is considered a common SEO ( search engine optimization ) technique to get back-links for the submitted website. One distinctive feature of 'directory submission' is that it cannot be fully automated like search engine submissions. Manual directory submission
1440-580: The multimedia functions are rarely used in Windows help files. In 1993, the developers who were working on the next generation viewer were moved to the Cairo systems group which was charged with delivering Bill Gates ' 'vision' of 'Information at your fingertips'. This advanced browser was a fully componentized application using what are now known as Component Object Model objects, designed for hypermedia browsing across large networks and whose main competitor
1488-576: The player explores a castle by answering questions whose answers can be found in the encyclopedia's articles. There was also a "Geography Quiz" and several other games and quizzes, some quizzes also in Encarta Kids . Until 2005, Encarta came in three primary software editions: Standard, Deluxe, and Reference Library (called Reference Suite until Encarta 2002) (price and features in that order). Beginning with Encarta 2006 , however, when Websters Multimedia took over its maintenance, Encarta became
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1536-965: The price paid for inclusion: A human-edited directory is created and maintained by editors who add links based on the policies particular to that directory. Human-edited directories are often targeted by SEOs on the basis that links from reputable sources will improve rankings in the major search engines . Some directories may prevent search engines from rating a displayed link by using redirects, nofollow attributes, or other techniques. Many human-edited directories, including DMOZ , World Wide Web Virtual Library , Business.com and Jasmine Directory , are edited by volunteers, who are often experts in particular categories. These directories are sometimes criticized due to long delays in approving submissions, or for rigid organizational structures and disputes among volunteer editors. In response to these criticisms, some volunteer-edited directories have adopted wiki technology, to allow broader community participation in editing
1584-444: The printed version of Encyclopædia Britannica or the online Misplaced Pages. Like most multimedia encyclopedias, Encarta 's articles tended to provide an overview of the subject rather than an exhaustive coverage and can only be viewed one at a time. A sidebar could display alternative views, essays, journals or original materials relevant to the topic. For example, when reading about computers, it featured annals since 1967 of
1632-446: The product as Microsoft Multimedia Viewer . The idea was that such a tool would help a burgeoning growth of CD-ROM titles that would spur demand for Windows. Although the engine had multimedia capabilities that would not be matched by Web browsers until the late 1990s, Microsoft Viewer did not enjoy commercial success as a standalone product. However, Microsoft continued to use the engine for its Encarta and WinHelp applications, though
1680-561: The site owner must pay to have his or her website listed). RSS directories are similar to web directories, but contain collections of RSS feeds , instead of links to websites. During the early development of the web, there was a list of web servers edited by Tim Berners-Lee and hosted on the CERN webserver. One historical snapshot from 1992 remains. He also created the World Wide Web Virtual Library , which
1728-492: The software company struck a non-exclusive rights deal with the publishers of the Funk & Wagnalls Encyclopedia , and considered a rewrite of the material. Following the successes of Compton's Multimedia Encyclopedia (1989; published by Britannica ) and The New Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia (1992), Microsoft initiated their multimedia-encyclopedia project under the internal codename "Gandalf". In 1993, "Gandalf"
1776-532: The website becomes more visible and increases the chances that visitors who browse the directory will click on the listing. Web directories will often make themselves accessing by more and more URLs by acquiring the domain registrations of defunct websites as soon as they expire, a practice known as Domain drop catching . Encarta Microsoft Encarta is a discontinued digital multimedia encyclopedia and search engine published by Microsoft from 1993 to 2009. Originally sold on CD-ROM or DVD , it
1824-627: Was Encarta Premium 2009, released in August 2008. Microsoft announced in April 2009 that it would cease to sell Microsoft Student and all editions of Encarta Premium software products worldwide by June 2009, citing changes in the way people seek information, and in the traditional encyclopedia and reference material market, as the key reasons behind the termination. Updates for Encarta were offered until October 2009. Additionally, MSN Encarta web sites were discontinued around October 31, 2009, with
1872-453: Was a terminate-and-stay-resident program that ran alongside a dominant program, unbeknownst to the dominant program. Like Apple's similar Hypercard reader, Bookshelf engine's files used a single compound document , containing large numbers of subdocuments ("cards" or "articles"). They both differ from current browsers which normally treat each "page" or "article" as a separate file. Though similar to Apple's Hypercard reader in many ways,
1920-606: Was accessible using a conversational interface on Windows Live Messenger via the MSN Bot "Encarta Instant Answers". The bot could answer many encyclopedia related questions directly in the IM window. It used short sentences from the Encarta website, and sometimes displays full articles in the Internet Explorer -based browser on the right. It also could complete simple mathematical and advanced algebra problems. This service
1968-528: Was also available in German, Spanish, French and Japanese. Each summer Microsoft published a new version of Encarta . However, despite the inclusion of news-related and some supplementary articles, Encarta 's contents had not been changed substantially in its later years. Besides the yearly update, the installed offline copy could be updated over the Internet for a certain period for free depending on
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2016-405: Was also available online via annual subscription, although later articles could also be viewed for free online with advertisements. By 2008, the complete English version, Encarta Premium , consisted of more than 62,000 articles, numerous photos and illustrations, music clips, videos, interactive content, timelines, maps, atlases and homework tools. Microsoft published similar encyclopedias under
2064-494: Was appended with a copyright boilerplate message after the selection. The user interface allowed for viewing content with only images, videos, sounds, animations, 360-degree views, virtual tours, charts and tables or only interactives. Encarta was originally available for sale on 1–5 CD-ROMs or a DVD. Some new PCs were shipped with an OEM edition of Encarta. Encarta 2000 and later had "Map Treks", which were tours of geographic features and concepts. Microsoft also had for
2112-455: Was discontinued in 2000. In later editions of the Encarta suite (Encarta 2000 and onwards), Bookshelf was replaced with a dedicated Encarta Dictionary , a superset of the printed edition. There has been some controversy over the decision, since the dictionary lacks the other books provided in Bookshelf which many found to be a useful reference, such as the dictionary of quotations (replaced with
2160-555: Was discontinuing both the Encarta disc and online versions. The MSN Encarta site was closed on October 31, 2009, in all countries except Japan, where it was closed on December 31, 2009. Microsoft continued to operate the Encarta online dictionary until 2011. In 1985, Microsoft attempted to establish a partnership with Encyclopædia Britannica to create a CD-ROM version of their publication. Since their management felt it would not fit in with their traditional print-based offerings, Britannica rejected Microsoft's offer. By 1989,
2208-441: Was officially launched as Encarta ; the name was created for Microsoft by an advertising agency. Encarta cost $ 395 upon release, although it soon dropped to $ 99, and was often bundled into the price of a new computer purchase. The text of Funk & Wagnalls served as the basis of its first edition; Funk & Wagnalls continued to publish revised editions for several years independently of Encarta , but ceased printing in
2256-636: Was shared with Microsoft Student, and was streamlined to reduce clutter with only a Search box which returned relevant results. However, it became no longer possible to simply browse all the encyclopedia articles alphabetically. The dynamic maps were generated with the same engine that powered Microsoft MapPoint software. The map was a virtual globe that one could freely rotate and magnify to any location down to major streets for big cities. The globe had multiple surfaces displaying political boundaries, physical landmarks, historical maps and statistical information. One could selectively display statistical values on
2304-540: Was thought to be Lotus Notes . Long before Netscape appeared, this team, known as the WEB (web enhanced browser) team had already shipped a network capable hypertext browser capable of doing everything that HTML browsers would not be able to do until the turn of the century. Nearly all technologies of Cairo shipped. The WEB browser was not one of them, though it influenced the design of many other common Microsoft technologies. BYTE in 1989 listed Microsoft Bookshelf as among
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