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Clip art is defined in the Random House Personal Computer Dictionary as "Electronic illustrations that can be inserted into a document. Many clip art packages are available, some general and others specialized for a particular field." Clip art has its roots firmly anchored within the realm of desktop publishing. Initially, as stated in the definition, many companies scrambled to throw together collections of images, not caring as to their quality, originality nor their format and thus its compatibility with applications in which they were to be used.

Nova Development has been in the clip art business for several years now and continues to build on their excellent library of images. The Art Explosion series started off with Art Explosion 40,000, a collection of over 40,000 images. Next followed Art Explosion 125,000, then Art Explosion 250,000 and finally Art Explosion 525,000. Each collection continued to enhance and improve on the previous collection's functionality and range of subject matter. Initially released for the Macintosh platform, Windows versions soon followed.

And now Nova has upped the ante again with its staggering new title, Art Explosion 750,000 ($199.95). I jokingly told Nova's public relations manager that it took three UPS delivery men to lug the package upstairs. Actually, the box weighs in at a little over ten pounds! What contributes to the weight of this computer software monster is a two volume catalog system spanning 1800 pages and 48 CD-ROMS. Also included are two CD-ROM protector binders in which to store all the CDs. This is one impressive collection of images.

There are images in this collection for just about anything you can come up with. And the books are a wonderful source for ideas as well. Just looking at so many different images is enough to inspire all sorts of creative thought. The clip art comes in popular formats such as EPS, TIFF, JPEG and GIF and more than 80 percent of them are in color. And 65 percent of the images are vector art which means they can be scaled up or down with virtually no distortion. Also included is an image viewing program that lets you view each image before dragging it directly into another application.

All the images are royalty-free allowing owners to incorporate any of the images for any type of use, be it commercial or personal. Windows users need not suffer from clip art envy. Nova makes Art Explosion 600.000 for Windows ($79.95) consisting of 29 CDs or 3 DVDs. Sometimes, more really is better. And that's the case with Nova Development's latest round of clip art collections.

Nova Development www.novadevelopment.com (818) 591-9600

Things keep getting bigger

Not to be outdone in this week's size department, I've just had a read of the biggest Macintosh OS 9 book to date. This book is a little over two inches thick and spans 916 pages. But more importantly than size, it's packed with useful OS 9 information and describes in detail the over 50 new Mac OS 9 features. Written by Gene Steinberg, a prolific writer of Macintosh books, "Mac OS 9, The Complete Reference" is filled with clear black and white screen images and easy to follow descriptions. Apple's excuse for a manual that comes with OS 9 sorely lacks what one needs to know to become a proficient user of this latest OS from Apple Computer. If you plan to use or are currently using Mac OS 9, make this book a part of your collection.

Published by the Osborne Media Group, a subsidiary of McGraw-Hill. $39.99 ISBN: 0-07-212506-3 (510) 549-6600 www.osborne.com