I have been using the Peterson Multimedia Guide to North American Birds. =
Over all the quality of the drawings (very similar to field guide), =
photos and sound seem very good. The user interface to get to the =
information takes some getting used to, it is not as quick as just =
flipping through the field guide. But, it does bring all the =
information available together in one place and there is more than in =
the field guide: range, habitat, feeding, nesting, status, field marks, =
similar, voice, field view.

It does have an interesting feature "Bird Finder" where you can use =
different criteria (e.g. habitat, bird size, etc.) to narrow down the =
list of possible birds.

The life list feature is OK. I was recently sent (totally out of the =
blue) an update to the program which I bought this summer. It has an =
improved list feature, mainly that you can now have multiple lists. =
Printing out the list is still poor, just one style of report with all =
the information; comments, dates, etc. printed out so that you can only =
get 6 or birds listed on a page. They need a version of the list report =
that is just one line/bird so that it is more condensed.

The data is stored in a Microsoft Access Database. I have been able to =
use Access to look at the data but I have not had a chance to see if I =
could set up more customized reports using Access directly on the =
database. That is on my (long) to-do list...

The one last thing I would like to mention is that I have had excellent =
support. The 2-3 times I have called I reached some one who could help. =
Most recently I have gotten support via email. This has been helpful =
as I am running Windows NT 4.0 which is not a supported platform, only =
Win 3.1 and Win 95 are officially supported. They also seem responsive =
to user suggestions for changes, witness the update they sent me.

Charlie Kahle
charlesk at seanet.com
Seattle, WA

----------
From: Grant Hendrickson[SMTP:grant at brigadoon.com]
Sent: Tuesday, December 03, 1996 7:41 PM
To: tweeters at u.washington.edu
Subject: Re: bird cd roms

The National Audubon CD on North American Birds is excellent in most=20
parts. I have been extremely disappointed in the bird songs, however.=20
Many are so distorted as to be useless. I sent one back and the=20
replacement is just as bad. I tried it on three different platforms;=20
the problem persists. Check out the House Finch and Golden Crowned=20
Sparrow for examples of this.

Contact with Random House, the publisher, gave me a "we're sorry"=20
response but nothing else.