In the last year or so CD-ROMs have begun to deluge bookstores and computer stores. Quite a few of them, especially at the beginning, have been hastily assembled arrangements of pre-existing material, throwing together sound, pictures, movies, and text in a format slower and harder to use than any book ever published. But lately CD-ROMs have been created with greater and greater thought and sophistication, and several recent titles stand out as of interest to the readers of American Heritage .

The closest thing to a general American history yet on CD-ROM is Smithsonian’s America (Creative Multimedia, for Windows), an “Interactive Exhibition of American History and Culture” taken from a show the Smithsonian Institution mounted in Japan in 1994. It’s very much a museum show rather than a detailed history, but it is one that covers the
American past in the broadest way with surprising effectiveness. It breaks down into eight main sections: “American Ideals and Images,” “The Peopling of America,” “Entertaining Americans,” “Politics and Protest” (which includes the Revolution and the Civil War), “The Western Frontiers,” “Conquering Time and Space,” “Americans at Home,” and “Looking American.” Under “The Peopling of America,” you might select “Coming to America” from among several choices and then, under that, “Native Americans.” You will then hear a good basic introduction to the subject while being shown engrossing archival photographs of Eskimos building an igloo, an 1879 Zuni village, and more. Then you’ll be offered eight artifacts to see or hear, including a Sioux shirt, an Edison film of a Pueblo dance, and a recording of a Zuni harvest dance. This handsome, intelligently conceived, and entertaining CD might be just the thing to draw children into a greater curiosity about the nation’s past.

Family Tree Maker Deluxe Edition (Banner Blue Software, for Windows) makes it easy to delve into your own family’s past. It starts with an attractive and simple-to-use database for recording complete family information,
making the basic work of recording genealogy clear and uncomplicated. It automatically presents the information in trees of any person’s ancestors and descendants, in lists of relations, and in other ways. It offers scrapbook pages indexed to any relative or event that can include images and sound as well as text. Best of all, it has a guide to finding genealogical information, listing dozens of important sources, many of which—state birth and marriage records and more—are available themselves on CD-ROM from the same company.

One use in which CD-ROM technology can offer definite advantages is in exploring and enjoying music. Antonin Dvorak: Symphony No. 9 (Voyager, for Macintosh) includes not only a full recording of the New World Symphony but also a reduced score that scrolls by as the music plays, written musical commentary and analysis that also unfolds with the performance, demonstrations and illustrations of every instrument and musical term used,