WB Public Library Editions

I again searched for "wombat" in WB Online Kids. I was directed to the same general Australia link as I had been in WB Kids. I then clicked through the "Plants and Animals" link to "Animals" and then to the alphabetical list of animal topics. This list appeared to be shorter than the list in WB Kids: there were no entries for "W" at all, where WB Kids had offered links to wolves, wolverines, and wallabies. There was no listing for "mammal." Oddly, there was a link to "arthropods." Looking more deeply into the link list left me baffled. For instance, there was a link to giant tubeworm, but not to giraffe. I could not discern any controlling rationale for what had links and what was left off. In WB Kids, the links covered most common animals. For my students, I'd recommend WB Kids over the WB Online Kids at the public library, and I will be sure to caution them that although the sites look alike, there are some differences.

Using the WB Online Information Finder, I searched "wombat" and got ten hits. The first took me went directly to the same article as in WB Student with the same picture and supporting material. The other links only peripherally mentioned wombats. The Highlight Search Term feature at the top of the page made scanning these articles much faster and is somthing I would definitely recommend to my students.

In the WB Online Reference Center, I again searched for "Moldova" and came to the same article with the same information and number of links in the left- and right sidebars. This time, the voice reader option was working, though it was inconsistent in its pronounciation of "Moldova" and it consistently pronounced the word "save" as "sov." Still, it was clear enough to be helpful to students uncertain of the written words.

All in all, I preferred the school library editions of WB, though in truth there was little difference between the options, at least judging by the terms I chose to search.