Substantial portions of enormous reference and research databases for business, law, medical and life sciences, social sciences, and engineering and hard sciences are available on CD-ROM, sometimes from more than one publisher. Most novices find CD-ROM easy and fun to use. Microsoft Bookshelf, for example, operates like a desktop utility. Using many CD-ROM databases, however, requires learning some basic computer searching skills. Fortunately, most CD-ROM search software allows users to develop these skills naturally as they access information.
Help is available through help screens and printed manuals.
Many publishers also offer onscreen or print, and toll-free assistance numbers. Usually the search proceeds through a series of menus, beginning with choices of search fields, such as author, title, or subject. Users type in keywords and the system tells them how many items in the database contain those words. As users become more accustomed to searching, they can begin to use more sophisticated functions. The software also offers different ways to browse through the indexes or the database itself.