The most popular CD-Roms
for Mormonism research

Here are descriptions of the four major titles currently available.

1. New Mormon Studies CD-Rom  Price:  $200.00  HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!
   This is by far the most expensive of the group, but it provides vast amounts of rare source material regarding Mormonism's early beginnings (whether faith-promoting or not, e.g. the Nauvoo Expositor) and the original versions of all LDS scriptures.  Not only this, but every issue of Dialogue and Sunstone and Signature Books' entire non-fiction line through 1996 is here.  Ethan Smith's View of the Hebrews also makes its appearance.  This CD-Rom has none of the fluff and all of the scholarship!  The format is in the easy-to-use FolioViews style.

2. Gospelink 2001  Price:  $69.95
   This CD-Rom earns its salt by its collection of early Christian writings, apocryphal writings, and pseudepigraphic works.  There are many of Shakespeare's plays and other world classics here, too.  There is a greater quantity of material here than on the New Mormon Studies CD-Rom, containing virtually every book on modern LDS thought and practice that you'd find on the shelves of a Deseret Book outlet.  I hesitate to vouch for its quality, per se, since most of its books on LDS history seem to be the typical sanitized variety.  One noteworthy title this contains that the New Mormon Studies CD-Rom doesn't is Solomon Spalding's "Manuscript Story."  If you're not so much interested in armchair historical research as having many, many recent LDS publications in one convenient place, however, this is the one to get.  It also includes material from the old LDS Infobase CD-Rom.  The format appears to be some sort of Windows 95 hybrid.

3. LDS Classics CD-Rom 2.0  Price:  $44.00
   This has the original versions of all LDS scriptures among other useful items.  It also contains Mormonism--Shadow or Reality? which is the heavyweight champion of all anti-Mormon books.  This appears to be a vastly scaled-down version of the New Mormon Studies CD-Rom, providing mostly source material.  One historical title this has that the New Mormon Studies CD-Rom doesn't is Eber D. Howe's Mormonism Unvailed.  I am not very familiar with its operating format, but from what I've seen it looks easy to use.

4. The Mormon Historical Reference Library  Price:  $9.00  RECOMMENDED!
   For the price, you really can't beat this CD-Rom.  Included is source material from "both sides of the fence."  The software is quite similar to the look and feel of a web-browser (with one minor drawback:  There are three separate copies of the reader software included, each giving access to different material, which means you can't access everything from just one window).  Also included are many more text and Word files, containing even more historical material, and a few other freeware programs thrown in to boot.