The Columbia Granger's World of Poetry on CD-ROM combines the indexing power of Granger's Index to Poetry with the full text of the actual poems most often anthologized. Users can read the full texts of 8,500 classic poems, 3,000 quotations from a further 1,500 famous poems, and full anthology citations for another 60,000 poems. Only an author, subject, title, first line or key words from the body of the poem are needed to locate a poem.
The CD-ROM, the first ever published by an American university press, is based on Granger's Index to Poetry, 8th edition (1986), The Columbia Granger's Index to Poetry, 9th edition (1990), The Columbia Granger's Guide to Poetry Anthologies (1990), and the Columbia Granger's Dictionary of Poetry Quotations (1991). Poems selected for inclusion on this CD-ROM are those most commonly researched.
The indexing is an extension of Granger's indexing--70,000 poems in 550 anthologies, 12,000 poets, 4,000 subjects. Four hundred of these anthologies are also described and evaluated, providing a useful collection development tool.
The Columbia Granger's World of Poetry operates on MS/DOS, using IMPACT by Auto-Graphics, Inc. IMPACT is a user-friendly, full-text retrieval package. It is menu-driven and simple enough for public use without training, while also offering an advanced version with Boolean searching for the professional. Access to the program itself is as easy as loading the disc, typing GRANGER, and pressing ENTER. Toll-free technical support is available.
The Columbia Granger's World of Poetry on CD-ROM is priced at $699. Periodic updates are planned.
Computer Requirements: IBM XT, 286, 386, or fully compatible computer; PC/MS-DOS version 3.0 or higher; 640K primary memory (RAM); CD-ROM Drive using Microsoft extensions version 1.0 or higher.
[Contact: Columbia University Press, 562 West 113th Street, New York, NY 10025; (212) 316-7127; ISBN #0-231-07672-X.]
