Reference products are the most common form of commercial multimedia products. It includes encyclopedias, dictionaries, cook-books, and historical and scientific surveys.

Reference products are long-lived and typically deployed on CD-ROM. It is used by a wide range of users from children to adults.

There are two basic classes of Reference products. Generalized reference systems, including encyclopedias and dictionaries, provide broad treatments of content at a limited depth. Detailed content-based reference systems focus on a specific area and provide extensive information.