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The CD-Rom: Strengths

Given the vast amount of very specific information in the text, the search engine on the CD is an essential tool. Any specialist who has hunted through a large book, trying to find a partially-remembered quote, knows this. This program provides a list of hits on each search, thus enabling the reader to revisit previous finds. The hits list would be even more useful if it gave page numbers which could be cited in quotations.

The search engine allows the reader to hypertext on key words, either for one chapter or for the entire text. Moving freely from one chapter to another can break the linearity of text and encourage the reader to approach a work thematically. In this case, however, searches always begin at the top of the file, and so they subtly return the reader to the text order. Backward searching or searching from point-in-text are not supported.

A notepad function, easily accessed at any point in the text, allows the reader to jot down notes or copy quotes as they occur, for later retrieval in print or file. Users might note that it is necessary to switch from live-links mode to select mode in order to copy text to the notebook.

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© Internet Archaeology URL: http://intarch.ac.uk/journal/issue10/reviews/latta/ml_whatsgood.html
Last updated: Mon Aug 6 2001