|
[texte en français]
CD-ROM version of Encyclopedia of World Problems and Human Potential
Edited by the Union of International Associations, Published by K.G. Saur München. Price / order.
 On
a single CD-ROM, Encyclopedia Plus contains the text of over 3,000 pages
of the renowned 3-volume book-edition Encyclopedia
of World Problems and Human Potential including the new
volume on Actions, Strategies and Solutions. The CD-ROM
technology greatly enhances search and cross-referencing capabilities.
Searches are very fast. One can scan selected fields or the entire text,
using keywords or subject categories.
Encyclopedia Plus is another product of the editors of Yearbook
Plus -- the Yearbook of International Organizations -- the UIA --
which for over 85 years has served as a clearing house for information
on the activities and concerns of international organizations, now exceeding
25,000. This unique 3-volume reference work is a comprehensive sourcebook
of information on recognized world problems, their interconnections
and the human resources available to analyze and respond to them. See
the descriptive commentaries
on the Encyclopedia Project
as a whole.
The CD-ROM is divided into five main infobases:
- World Problems Infobase: Encyclopedia
Plus profiles 12,000 world problems in an infobase with 120,000 hyperlinks
between them. Navigating them provides the user with unparalleled
insight into the complex network of the world problematic.(More
info | see demo via http://www.uia.org/db/)
- Human Development Infobase: There are
some 4,400 individual entries in the human development infobase. They
document the diversity of approaches to human advancement in the light
of different disciplines, cultures and spiritual traditions. Entries
ore hyperlinked to indicate developmental pathways between them. They
are also related to over 3,200 constructive and destructive values
in the values infobase, themselves in a network of 23,000 hyperlinks.
(More info | see demo via http://www.uia.org/db/
| commentaries)
- Human Values Infobase: The Encyclopedia
takes an unusual approach to the range of human values. It identifies
987 "constructive" or positive values as well as 1,990 "destructive"
or negative values, clustered into 230 value polarities to transcend
the semantic confusion associated with many value words. 23,000 hyper
links exist between the values infobase and to the human development
(8,300) and world problems (16,300) infobases.(More
info | see demo via http://www.uia.org/db/
| commentaries)
- Strategies Infobase: The strategy infobase
profiles almost 29,500 strategies and action proposals responding
to world problems or enhancing particular values or modes of development.
In similar fashion to the problems infobase, the strategy entries
crossreference each other through over 91,000 hyperlinks. In addition
they show links both to world problems and international organizations
which are employing or advocating them -- making a total cover of
over 126,000 hyperlinks.(More info
|see demo via http://www.uia.org/db/
| commentaries)
- Bibliography Infobase: There are over 12,000 bibliographic
crossreferences to entries in the other four preceding infobases.
Network of 260,000 Hyperlinked Cross-references: There are cross-references
between Encyclopedia entries -- working in the
above demos on this site. These are listed after the text of
each entry. Following the pattern of cross- references, hyperlinks allow
the user to "jump" from one entry to another in the network. The hypertext
format means that cross-relationships between Encyclopedia entries are
available at the click of a button: for example, between "broader" (more
general) strategies and their "narrower" (more specific) strategies; or
between problems which aggravate or are aggravated by another. In some
cases there are also hyperlinks between entries in different infobases.
In all, there are more than 250,000 hyperlinks on Encyclopedia Plus. The
hyperlinks between the problems, strategies, values and human development
infobases enable the user to explore a higher level of relationships between
these dimensions.
It is equally quick and simple to click between the five infobases
on the CD. Hyperlinks exist also between certain entries in different
infobases -- for example between strategies, the organizations concerned
with them, the problems they address and reference publications on the
subject. In practice this means that users can explore the complex networks
of relationships between world problems, human development, values,
action strategies and organizations through almost a quarter of a million
hyperlinks. Such explorations cumbersome, if not impossible using books.
Vicious Problem Cycles: A cycle is a chain of problems, with
each aggravating the next - with the last looping back to aggravate
the first in the chain. 2,873 such problem loops are identified on the
CD.
Commentary and Explanatory Pages: The
methods and criteria by which the Encyclopedia was produced, together
with commentaries on the significance of different sections, notably
for the challenge of world governance, are provided in over 200 pages.
These can be searched like the other infobases. Specific commentaries
cover: world problems, organizational strategies, metaphors for governance,
integrative knowledge organization, transformative approaches, human
values and human development.
General Features
- Search fields:
- Problems: Name, Nature, Incidence, Broader, Narrower,
Aggravates, Reduces, Loops, Claim/Counter-claim; Bibliography
- Human Development: Name, Description, Content, Broader,
Related, Narrower, Preceding approach, Following approach
- Strategies: Name, Description, Implementation, Cliam/Counter-claim,
Broader, Narrower, Constrains, Facilitates, Organizations, Problems,
Bibliography
- Human Values: Name, Dynamics, Broader, Narrower, Human
development, Problems
- Query windows: English. Language of contents: English.
- Further features: Indices, Boolean operators, Truncation,
History function for search queries, Bookmark, Note and Highlighter
function, and clustering of hits into stored groups
- Printing/Export: DOS: no printing facilities; Windows/MAC:
no restrictions
- Software: Folio Bound
VIEWS 3.1a
- Interface: Microsoft Windows, Windows'95, MS-DOS, Macintosh
Check the demo to see the kind
of information we are including in the profiles we provide.
Special features
- The Folio Bound Views: A major advantage in the Folio
environment is that every word is indexed. Searches are very fast.
They can be made by field combinations of fields or for the text as
a whole. Standard bookmark facilities allow the user to return to
an earlier entry. Notes and highlighters can be used.
- Changes to information content by users: The software allows
users to make their own additions and changes to the data. These are
saved as special overlay files "through" which users subsequently
view the data on the CD-ROM. Different users may have their own overlay
files making the tool very interesting for institutional users and
student projects.
- Multi-lingual access: Language barriers are a major issue
in international organization information. A very rich multilingual
thesaurus has been developed to enable users to interact with the
data according to their language preference. For example, German users
can use German words to access information only available in English.
|
