Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia

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The Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia (abbreviated GME) is an electronic encyclopedia in English available online and on 2 CD-ROMs. It is aimed at middle and high school students and is available to schools and libraries as one of the options in the Grolier Online reference service, which also includes the Encyclopedia Americana, a larger encyclopedia aimed for students up to college level, and the New Book of Knowledge, an encyclopedia for elementary school students. Grolier Online also offers a Spanish language encyclopedia and specialist reference works on science, lands and peoples, and the states of the United States and Mexico. Grolier Online is not available to individual subscribers. It is targeted at the North American market and does not have a British English edition.

The GME originated from the Academic American Encyclopedia CD-ROM, which became available in 1985. It was the first encyclopedia to be published electronically, and was based on the 21-volume print encyclopedia of the same name. The Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia first appeared in 1992. Over time, pictures, maps, sound files, video files, interactive features, and Internet links were added. Updated quarterly, the multimedia compact disc increasingly diverged from the print set and eventually became a completely independent product. The 2003 Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia is the latest and perhaps final edition available on CD.

Other multimedia encyclopedias appeared after Academic American's. Most notably, Compton's Encyclopedia in 1992 and Encarta in 1993.