Microsoft has been producing its Encarta Encyclopedia and World Atlas since the early 1990s, but despite several attempts it has never produced anything that could rightfully claim to be an Australian edition. In recent years it has put extra effort into producing a reference set that suited local conditions, but has struggled to shake off the pervading Americanisms that ultimately spoil the hard work.

The good news is that the 2001 edition of its Australian edition encyclopaedia actually has a good Aussie feel to it. Microsoft has, by and large, got rid of the cringe factor - that feeling users got when seeking info about something Australian, knowing that the information was likely to be wrong, out of date or written for an American audience.

Not this time. Encarta 2001 has many more, much better and much more current articles on Australia than in the past, although there could still be some improvements. Microsoft needs to ensure information is better co-ordinated. For example an article on the Gold Coast uses population statistics from 1991, which are far too old to be relevant. But another article on Queensland quotes 1998 population statistics for the Gold Coast. The latter information should have been used in both cases.

The encyclopaedia offers 30 virtual tours of important sites around the world but none relate to Australia. These tours provide a 360 degree view of places as diverse as an ancient Mayan ruin to the inside of a space shuttle, and it would have been nice to have seen one of Sydney Harbour, the Opera House or even Uluru.

While the shut-off date for major articles was July this year, users can download updates from Encartas Web site and the first of them includes a series of articles on competition at the Sydney 2000 Olympics. While they are brief and lack graphics, they are mainly about Australian successes, adding to the feeling that this really is an Australian edition. However, it is not solely an Australian publication and the Encarta Deluxe Encyclopedia, which is the core ingredient of Encarta Reference Suite, deals with international subjects.
The suite is now a six-CD set comprising the encyclopaedia, World Interactive Atlas and World English Dictionary and if you have the space (you require more than 2Gb) it is possible to load both the encyclopaedia and the atlas onto your hard drive, doing away with the CD-shuffle every time youre looking for information. This problem is bypassed if you purchase the DVD version of Encarta instead. Microsoft uses Internet Explorer 5.5 as its main navigation tool for the encyclopaedia as well as the atlas and will upgrade your existing browser to suit. At the same time it adds the Encarta Researcher tool to its tool bar. This clever application is a search engine that helps the user find the information they are seeking either from the Encarta suite or the Internet, and copies and pastes it into the users project files, along with a bibliography.

Encarta has undergone yet another face lift to make it more user friendly, particularly for people who have difficulty reading text on a screen. Words and lines of text are well spaced and the text is crisp and clear. If you can put up with it, computer generated voice articles can be read to you.

The atlas now has an enhanced interactive map that allows the user to define an area and zoom in on it for a closer view and more information. Precise longitude and latitude can be obtained and the area can be viewed in a variety of forms from terra form to demographic maps. However, the time zone map does not take into account daylight saving.

The dictionary is an interesting combination of English/French, and English/German with a thesaurus and book of quotations thrown in. It provides translations of commonly used French and German words as well as doing the job of an English dictionary. Spellings are both American and English so the choice is up to the user, however, as outlined earlier, the dictionary would be much more valuable if it could be loaded like the atlas and encyclopaedia rather than having to be run from the CD.

Encarta has improved steadily over the years and recently the emphasis has moved away from glitzy multimedia to well presented and researched information. There are still videos and animations but they no longer dominate the package, and that is not a bad thing.