Re: CD ROMs on authors

[Jonnie Sneed Jordan <jsjordan@TENET.EDU>]

We have purchasPed and are using both "Discovering Authors" from Gale
Research and DISCLIT British and American Writers from OCLC.  I would
agree that for the first time, casual or desperately hurried user, "
Discovering Authors" is the easiest.  Every menu option except Criticism
is very simple and direct.  It is very simple to retrieve or print from
the Criticism menu too.  It is at that point, however, that our students
encounter the same difficulty in both programs.  This is criticism that
requires careful reading and thinking and hopefully some familiarity with
the work being criticized.

Careful limiting of searching terms in both programs will result in the
specific information a student needs.  The student will not be overwhelmed
with pages of printouts that are not pertinent to the research topic.
Some of the printouts in "Discovering Authors" criticism are very lengthy
when selected from the Criticism menu without some selectivity.
The print-by-page feature on DISCLIT can be annoying but prevents
overprinting.  Sometimes, when we cannot find what we know must be
available on DISCLIT, we revert to the very untechnological choice of
searching the index of the book on the CD_ROM.  Since we know how the
Twayne indexes are put together, we have found elusive information that way.

We find that the two programs blend together well.  Often, when we cannot
find information on one program, there will be just what we need on the other.

By the way, we network DISCLIT on Lantastic Ethernet with no problems and
with no extra charge for networking.

jsjordan@Alice-Thurman.tenet.edu
Jonnie Sneed Jordan
A. C. Jones High School
Beeville, Texas