As well as the 'See Also' reference system of the hard copy, hypertext links lead the user from maps, to topics, people, events and back again using as search terms the entry headings of the hard copy version, not free text. By pressing the appropriate button, the user may see Ernie Dingo in a video, hear language spoken, or the songs of an area, or read text against a background of a photo of a particular event. This would seem to embody the essence of an index, which is to guide the user from a specific term to the body of information to which the term refers. Both versions have the advantage of integrating information so that the searcher can use different pathways to reach a piece of information. The permutations of these pathways are vast, even for a few search terms.
Searchers learn the context of the information by navigating the linkages.
The advantage of a CD-ROM is the speed that this can be achieved. Ask the Aboriginal people who visit the Institute Library, who, having found a map of their area on the CD-ROM, find information on their people, hear the sound of their songs or watch videos of events in their history. Teachers complain that they cannot get their students away from the CD-ROM to go to other classes. Students, new to Aboriginal studies, find the Encyclopaedia opens up a new world to them and refers them on to more specific areas of study. The final word should go to one of the Encyclopaedia's reviewers 'When the set arrived, I sat down to give the pages a preliminary flick-through to see what sort of task I'd undertaken and when I looked up, four hours later, I was mortified to discover how the time had just flown by.