Part of the Sonlight Curriculum for Eastern History (Core 5) uses the World Book Encyclopaedia on CD for the backbone information on the country being studied. I thought I would review how we found this to go. Sonlight also provides questions about the country that you can go through with the text, and as usual, a wonderful assortment of age appropriate reading books placed in the country and historical era under scrutiny.
In fact I found using the Encyclopaedia CD alot easier than I had expected. Part of the reason for this, is that Sonlight suggests which parts for you or your children to read. You could really work this out yourself, with a quick perusal of the information about that country and knowledge of what your kids will enjoy or not. Although the contents of any encyclopaedia can be quite dry, it is surprising how using a digial encyclopaedia has changed things up.
If you are studying a country, it is neat to listen to their national anthem, or traditional folk songs. Try doing that with the paper version!. Want to see what their national flags, state flags, national flora and fauna, people, artwork, countryside etc etc look like? Zoom in on the pictures. If you want more detail on a topic, much of the text has key words highlighted, so you can follow your interests very easily.
Other upsides: We are not causing deforrestation of acres of land to produce a set of books which will only be up to date for a few years. Sometimes, using an encyclopaedia at the library is not practical on a daily basis.
So what's the downside? You're not turning a page, you are clicking a mouse. (Can be viewed as an upside). You need a computer. You need to watch the kids if there is information in the encyclopaedia you don't want them to learn about.
Do you realise how much your view of the world is coloured by the culture you are living in? We used World Book for our readings, but after a short time, I (being an "alien") became unsettled at the view of the world from the USA. The location of continents or countries was discussed in relation to the United States. The history of other countries was discussed in relation to the US. Yes, I know there is connections there, but how about just sticking to the facts about the country's interaction with the rest of the world, and not just the US? Of course, this is a US encyclopaedia. However, I decided to read from the Encyclopaedia Brittianica CD first, but if you are trying to follow a particular curriculum (eg Sonlight) things get quite complicated using a different encyclopaedia from what they want you to.... I do feel however, that the Encyclopaedia Brittanica gives a more focused perspective of the history and geography of countries. (Warning: Conflict of interest in this comment....I may be biased towards the British viewpoints due to my Colonial upbringing.)
Overall, using the two encyclopaedias on CD has added a much greater depth to our geography and history studies. We always checkout the country we are learning about on google earth, and this, in combination with listening to the national anthems, looking at pictures of the countryside, clothing, food and animals make for an interesting read. 
This is the Australian flag, and coat of arms (from Wikipedia). I understand we are one of the few nations that eat both the animals on our coat of arms. For one of the basic foodstuffs, click on the link for Vegemite (under homesickness fixes in the left hand column).
Aussie Kim
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