As multimedia and networked computers invade the traditional turf of newspapers, magazines, the broadcast media, and the venerable book, writers such as myself take consolation in one thought: that as the means of conveying content multiply, so will the need for effective "content providers." Yet the sameness of the multimedia software filling the shelves of most computer outlets today raises doubt about whether there is, or will ever be, significant demand for original multimedia content. New-Age puzzle games such as Myst and Qin and slash-and-burn combat simulations (Doom, Quake, and Duke Nukem come to mind) seem to take up the most shelf space, followed by reference works such as Microsoft's Encarta and Cinemania that exploit the sheer storage capacity of a CD-ROM without adding much in the way of interactivity or graphical elegance. Just as in commercial television, the medium's vast possibilities-at least for now-go largely unexploited.

Yet one company has recently restored some of my optimism. Over the last year and a half, Corbis Corp. has introduced a line of educational/entertainment CD-ROMs whose rich content and sophisticated style put most other multimedia software to shame. Devoted to virtually inexhaustible subjects such as Leonardo da Vinci, Paul Cezanne, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and the Manhattan Project, the discs show how the skillful use of technology can enhance-rather than simply transmit-the meaning in archival and contemporary visual and audio material. The programs outshine other software in much the same way that the best PBS programming, such as Nova, The American Experience, and filmmaker Ken Burns's The Civil War-highlights the intellectual poverty of most commercial TV.