Ladies and gentlemen, encyclopedias have left the building. Slowly but surely, these print standbys are disappearing from shelves. And yet, they’re now more vital than ever. In a world of information overload, schools need a beacon of trustworthy knowledge. Which brings us to Grolier. This tried-and-true stalwart of the student research game has gone through its share of makeovers—remember CD-ROMS? Now under the banner of Scholastic, Grolier has been recently updated. The look is fresh, but in a crowded e-encyclopedia field, how does it stack up?

Grolier Online

http://teacher.scholastic.com/products/grolier

Grade Level Grolier online is for grades three and up.

Cost Pricing is based upon student enrollment and which combination of the eight available databases a school subscribes to. Call (800)387-1437 for pricing.

Overview With access to 120,000 articles, 340,000 vetted Web links, and 1,100 world newspapers, Grolier Online is an encyclopedia to be reckoned with. The option of subscribing to eight individual encyclopedias allows schools to pick and choose the resources that fit their needs. Among the choices are three general reference, two science-specific, two social studies-focused, and a Spanish-language encyclopedia, each targeted for a different audience. For this review, I tested a version with all eight encyclopedia options included.

Look and Feel The interface is pleasingly clean. The main page serves two major functions—users can visit individual encyclopedias to which they are subscribed or search them all.

The home page is similar for all of the age groups. Navigating from elementary to middle school to high school, very little changes. The interface definitely skews more toward middle and high school in the looks department. A more customized page with just the options relevant to that particular level would be an improvement.

Like others of its ilk, a video appears front and center upon first log in. It’s an inviting way to introduce students to the encyclopedia and makes clear that it isn’t just page after page of plain ol’ text—there’s some multimedia to be consumed. The videos are lower quality by current online standards, but the beauty is, they fire up immediately.

I’m all for a prominent search box (this is, after all, what the majority of kids will use when they access the site), but Grolier rides the line between prominent and protrusive. The banner and top navigation (including the search bar and tabs) take up quite a bit of space. Kids certainly won’t miss where to search, but the result is a bit more scrolling.

Grolier has a set of links to their various encyclopedia “sets” running down the left side of the screen. It’s a nice array for middle and high school students, but the elementary offerings are sadly limited. In a search for “lion” only one of the first 10 results was at a reading level below fifth grade.

The right side of the page features a current events section called Our World: a nice resource for teachers to access stories on current social studies topics, such as population growth and the rising value of gold.

The middle school page looks similar, but also links to world newspapers, debate topics, and “This Day in History” trivia. Below the search bar is a scrolling daily news feed. Click the News Desk button for a pop-up screen with a world map for users to explore news in depth. Clicking on the map brings up major headlines for that area of the world. Links to newspapers, debate topics, and featured stories are also located here.

The high school home page contains the same elements as middle school, arranged in a different way. Slightly disappointing.

How It Works From the main page, students will most often conduct a search or select a specific encyclopedia from the menu. Each resource’s home page is unique and audience specific. The main search box remains at the top of the screen at all times—a helpful bit of continuity.

The search feature is solid—flexible and fast. When I entered “Civil War,” a number of relevant encyclopedia articles appeared. Although encyclopedia search is the default, tabs along the top of the results page allow users to access related news stories, fast facts, magazine articles, websites, media, or Spanish language results. Grolier successfully pulls a number of resources together in one place to serve students on fact-finding missions.

I was impressed with the amount and quality of related websites. Students have a number of options.

The list of world newspapers links is truly impressive. Sorted alphabetically, students can find online news from just about any country you can think of—often from multiple sources.

It’s simple to narrow your search. On the results page, a smaller search box appears in the sidebar, allowing users to dig deeper into a topic. Underneath are links to all the results sorted by encyclopedia. Students can click on the choice that suits them best. An advanced search option allows students to get specific, adding some Boolean techniques into the mix.

I’m a fan of how Grolier has added narration to their articles. Once the Read Aloud option is turned on in the top toolbar, students can click on the beginning of any sentence to hear it aloud. I like that users aren’t locked into hearing the entire article. The voice, though obviously computer generated, is easy to listen to.

The interactive atlas is effective. The map opens in a pop-up window. Students can use a search box or click just about anywhere to find more information or zoom in on locations. Students can click on a city to learn its latitude and longitude, and even select two cities to determine the distance between them. Individual cities often link directly to their corresponding articles—a nice touch.

For Students, Teachers, and Librarians Remote access is, of course, a major plus, and any kid with Web access can connect to this impressive resource.

Schools with a focus on student reading levels will be pleased to know that each article comes complete with a Lexile reading score. Advanced search also includes the option to include a desired Lexile range. The Refine Results by Reading Level function was slightly confusing. When I clicked this button in the sidebar, I expected the results to be lined up in ascending order by Lexile level, but this was not the case.

Brief rant. All this Lexile talk is well and good, but let’s be realistic—a student conducting a search needs to find facts. If the two relevant search results are written in a Lexile range that’s too high or too low, I don’t think they should be disregarded.

At the bottom of each article, Grolier has wisely added citation information in MLA, APA, and Chicago Manual of Style formats. It’s as easy as can be to cite your source—as it should be.

Grolier has an entire section dedicated to teachers and librarians with links to a sizeable (and searchable) lesson plan archive. Each lesson ties in with a Grolier article. There are also links to upcoming Grolier training sessions, professional links to various teaching and curriculum sites, and printable resources including graphic organizers. Teachers can also access a list of every Go Tube video. It’s a modest collection, but it’s nice to view them in one location.

In this age of standards and benchmarks, Grolier has added the ability to quickly see which standards an article corresponds to and also enables teachers to search content based on a particular standard. While these sorts of things are often more noteworthy in theory than practice, Grolier has made it easy for teachers to navigate.

The teacher page also has a Featured Showcase, a small list of topics that have enhanced resources including large images, timelines, video, and audio. The showcases, covering topics such as the Great Depression and space exploration, will work well in tandem with an interactive whiteboard and bring an immersive learning experience that should engage students. Here’s hoping Grolier continues to add to this useful resource.

Verdict The state of online encyclopedias is pretty good these days. All the big names have products that you can be proud to share with staff and students. The redesigned Grolier Online is another competitive entry with plenty to like. If you’re in the market for an online encyclopedia, Grolier Online should certainly be in the discussion.

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