Your Ad Here

Your World on CD ROM

Copyright © 2002 Richard Seltzer

Skip the explanation and go straight to the table of contents

Updated August 8, 2004

This Web page shows the table of contents of  "Your World on CD ROM", with over 4000 documents from the UN and NATO. Internal links will take you to the various sections of this page, but you cannot get to the documents themselves here on the Web. For that you need the CD.

If you would like to have your PC (with speakers) read these texts aloud to you, while they are displayed in text on the screen, see below about the free ReadPlease software that we have included on this CD.

The retail price of this CD through Amazon and other book sellers is $49. Please visit our online store at http://store.yahoo.com/samizdat; there you can buy it for the wholesale price of $29.

This CD was compiled for Global Education Motivators (GEM), a non-governmental organization (NGO) that works in close association with the United Nations Department of Public Information.   For details about GEM, please see their Web site at www.gem-ngo.org  GEM provides a variety of programs to "Bring the World into the Classroom" and supports them with various resources such as "Your United Nations". You can find their resources and instructional materials online and via the UN/NGO Resource Center established by GEM at Chestnut Hill College. The UN/NGO Resource Center concentrates on the United Nations and the global issues of human rights, conflict resolution, disarmament, and the environment.

This  CD contains 4781 files. Of these, 3495 are UN materials, from the UN Web site www.un.org. They are included here with the permission of the UN. We selected these files for their importance from the many thousands of documents available at the UN site, and have organized and indexed them for the convenience of students and teachers.

The NATO materials -- 1286 files -- come from the NATO site www.nato.int and are included here with the permission of NATO. In both cases, we provide the text, and only the text, to help you more easily find and use the information that you need.

Many of the documents included here are in plain text format. Some, however, are only available in .pdf format and can be read on your computer screen or printed using the free Adobe® Acrobat® Reader. If you do not have this software installed on your system, you may download it from Adobe's website http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html or from their text-only download page http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/alternate.html

This CD was compiled by Richard Seltzer. The documents themselves are in the public domain. You can copy them onto your hard drive for convenience, or make an archival copy of the CD, as backup in case of damage to the original. But the collection and its index, created for your convenience, are under copyright. Please contact us first if you are interested in making copies of this CD for commercial purposes. seltzer@samizdat.com

For details about our publishing service, check www.samizdat.com/readme.html, and please visit our online store at http://store.yahoo.com/samizdat  (If you find this CD useful, you will probably also be interested in our Non-Fiction CD, which includes the full text of 1109 books, many of which are history, including US history.)

Teachers' and Students' Guide: Suggestions on how to get the most out of your books on CD ROM


Click on a category to go to one of the major sections of this index page: NB -- This index page is very large. If you printed it out, it would fill over 110 pages, single-spaced. The entries here (including Security Council Resolutions) have descriptions, not just names. That means that you can use the search/find function in your browser or word processor to quickly find whatever document you want. For instance, if you are interested in "Palestine" or "Afghanistan", search for that, repeatedly, to get to each and every document on that topic.


How to install and use the free ReadPlease software included on this CD

ReadPlease has given us permission to include the free version of their voice conversion software on this CD.
Click here if you would like to use this software. When you click on that link, you will then be asked if you want to save it on your computer or just run it. It will be easier for you if you install it on your hard drive; it will only take about 10 Mbytes; so choose Save. Then select the directory that you'd like to put it in. When the rapid, automatic installation is done, you will be able to open ReadPlease by clicking on an icon on your desktop.

When running ReadPlease, click on File, then Open, and browse to the texts you are interested on the CD (or any other text file you have). Click on Play and it will start "reading" the complete file aloud to you. Highlight a chunk of text (of any size) with your browser and then click on Selection, and it will read the text you selected. Controls in the right column allow you to change the speed of the voice (with a sliding bar), change the font size (with a sliding bar), and switch among four different voices (with the right and left arrows). You can edit the text right in the text window of ReadPlease, adding your notations, and marks you might want to make to indicate where you last stopped reading, and then save that edited book wherever you'd like on your hard drive. You'll find other choices under Options. Enjoy.

Please keep in mind that ReadPlease is their software not ours. They are the experts on it. They have even better versions with even clearer, more natural voices, which they sell. You can listen to samples at their Web site www.readplease.com, where you can also see detailed help files.  And you can contact them at:
ReadPlease Corporation, 121 Cherry Ridge Road, Thunder Bay, ON, Canada P7G 1A7. Phone: 807-474-7702


Tips for using/enjoying the texts on this CD:

The easiest way to get started is to click on My Computer, then on your CD drive, then on index.html. That should bring you to here, in Word or your Web browser, depending on your computer's setup.

From the index, click on the name of an individual work to see the full text.

Click "Back" in your browser to return here.

For plain text documents, use the "find" function in your browser (under Edit/Find in both Netscape and IE) to find any word or phrase within a document. For Acrobat (.pdf) documents, use the find" function within Acrobat (the binoculars icon).

When you stop reading, jot down the last phrase (a unique set of words) so you can search for that the next time you want to read and easily find the spot where you left off.

If you just want to read and if you have a large screen, use your browser and under View increase the type size to meet your taste.

If you just want to read and you have a small screen, try using WordPad or Word.

If you want to take notes while you read, and if the document is in plain text format, first save the file on your hard drive, then open it in WordPad or Word, enter your notes with the text (making them distinctive with bold or italic or by enclosing them in brackets] as you go along, and save the entire file, with those changes, when you are done. (You cannot edit documents that are in Acrobat, .pdf).

If you use Word, you can Select All [under Edit], and modify the font and type size of plain text documents (to make the letters larger and easier to read) [under Format and Font], and save the files on your hard drive [under File, Save As] with whatever changes you have made (including notes you made while reading).

You can buy these CDs at our online store at http://store.yahoo.com/samizdat
You can contact us at seltzer@samizdat.com, B&R Samizdat Express, 33 Gould St., West Roxbury, MA 02132. 617-469-2269.