The Sound of Music

Grove Music Online integrates content from a number of the publisher's music reference titles and adds value with an ever-expanding selection of relevant audio content.

Classical Music Library is a streamed digital music collection first and an authoritative music reference library second, while Naxos Music Library is one of the best examples of what can result when Internet technology is imaginatively blended with high-quality digital content.

We also take a quick look at music downloading services—like iTunes Music Store and Napster 2.0—and how libraries stand to gain from this emerging model for music acquisition.

Content Classical Music Library (CML) is a breakthrough resource that lets you glimpse what can happen when imaginative thinking and technology come together. An extensive collection of some 17,000 musical tracks that can be selected and streamed on demand, supplemented by a solid body of music-related reference material, CML is a uniquely self-contained resource for teachers, students, librarians, and anyone interested in exploring classical music.

The publishers have assembled a number of Playlists on various musical periods, artistic movements, and specific performers and composers, along with specialty Playlists like 'Lover's Guide' and 'Wedding Music.' Additionally, there is a feature called 'Discovery Concerts'—complete with program notes—organized around themes like holidays and music of various nationalities.

Subscribers have considerable control over how they implement the product. A library can open up access to remote users and determine whether to permit listeners to download selections and compile custom CDs (using their own credit cards). A library can even opt to mount the database on its own local server.

The promotional material indicates that the collection is 'benchmarked against the Music Library Association (MLA) listing of essential sound recordings.' This would seem an acceptable standard, although it is not clear what it means at this early point in CML's development. The MLA source, for example, recommends specific recordings for nine works by contemporary composer John Adams. CML offers just three pieces, none of which are those recommended by MLA. On the other hand, for some works—the Beethoven symphonies, for example—CML offers multiple recordings. But many major labels are missing—including Sony, Deutsche Grammophon, Nonesuch, Harmonia Mundi, EMI, BMG, and Naxos—along with many high-profile classical artists and conductors—Horowitz, Pavarotti, Ma, Perlman, and Gardiner.

Searchability The CML homepage provides immediate access to the site's contents. A 'quick search' box heads the page with a link to advanced search. All the browse options a music researcher could want fill the left-hand frame, including alphabetical browsing by Composer, Artist, Conductor, Ensemble, Instrument, Genre, Period, and Label. A second option, Browse by Genre, gives access to Orchestral, Chamber, Instrumental, Stage & Screen, Vocal & Choral, and Opera & Operetta content within the resource. The Reference component includes a library of Biographies (the featured one on Gustav Mahler runs about 600 words) and Images. Additional Reference materials include a Glossary and a breakdown of musical Periods, along with an assortment of MIDI files, which can be heard as a standalone resource and are also integrated into the Reference material.

Selecting a term in Browse mode takes searchers to a Results list where they are immediately offered the opportunity to 'Narrow your search further by selecting' additional terms. This is a fairly sophisticated option in that only relevant search terms are presented. For example, after choosing the Composer 'Albinoni, Tomaso Giovanni' from the Browse list, searchers may narrow the inquiry by pulling down the Instrument menu and selecting among Continuo, Oboe, Organ, String Orchestra, and Trumpet. The Ensemble menu, in turn, lets searchers identify any of the five orchestras and groups represented in the collection that have recorded one of Albioni's pieces.

From the Results list, searchers may Play a track, retrieve more information (on the work, the track, the recording, the artists, and the composer), or mark the selection for addition to a personal Playlist or custom CD. They may also view the static URL for the work.

Advanced search mode retains the ease of navigation. There are four search boxes in the template with an option to add more. Field indexes are selected via pull-down menus. Checking 'Enable automatic spell checking?' retrieves alternate and partial spellings of a composer's name. Behind the scenes, the system also does some 'preprocessing' to standardize search terminology (changing # to 'sharp'). Results are relevancy ranked, and the system recognizes when a term or phrase has musical significance and ranks it higher.

Given the inherent limitations of streamed audio and computer playback, CML listeners are not going to be treated to an audiophile experience. The muddy sound quality is 'mid-fi' at best. CML's documentation indicates that while recordings were intentionally encoded at a relatively low bit-rate to facilitate streaming, files are in the process of being reencoding in Windows Media 9 format, which should offer sound improvements. Mac and Netscape users will hear CML audio in compressed MP3 format.

Price Pricing for an annual subscription starts at $995 for three simultaneous users. Individuals who download musical selections and create custom CDs pay directly for this functionality with credit cards. The decision to enable this functionality (and to extend it to remote listeners) is left to the subscribing library's discretion. Prospective library subscribers may arrange a free 30-day trial.

Who Needs It? Classical Music Library is well suited to educational settings where a teacher wants to introduce students to a composer, work, genre, or period. The presence of static URLs allows linking to specific works from an electronic reserve list, a course homepage, or within a course management application. Classical Music Library is also a way for users to explore classical music without investing personal resources for the privilege—a concept perfectly in keeping with that of a library collection. Classical Music Library is a formidable collection of music and music reference material. Making it available across your institution—and to remote users as well—could fundamentally change what users expect libraries to deliver. As a pioneering resource it has some shortcomings, but they are resolvable ones that the publisher is committed to fixing.

Content Launched in 1991, Grove Music Online integrates into one resource the 29-volume New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 2d ed.; the four-volume New Grove Dictionary of Opera; and the three-volume New Grove Dictionary of Jazz, 2d ed. This comprehensive database contains nearly 50,000 articles, including 23,000+ biographies, 5000+ photographs, diagrams, and drawings from 6000+ contributors representing 98 countries. Musical examples and 3000+ links to authoritative musical sites on the Internet (including sound archives and illustrations) are major enhancements over the print format.

Grove has partnered with music software designer Sibelius to add sound. Scorch, a free web browser plug-in, allows users to view, play, print, transpose, and save musical scores. These sound enhancements deal primarily with technical articles, genres, and definitions. Examples are set to a default sound of an acoustic piano, regardless of the instrumentation of the score. Grove is developing the means to create a separate library of digital recordings made from live sources rather than the MIDI format used on the site.

In addition to the Scorch plug-in, users will need Windows Media Player and Viewpoint's 3-D image viewer to view models of instruments.

Updated annually, the site has 71 articles on contemporary composers, which have had their works expanded and updated; 56 musical examples in 20 articles have been Sibelius-enhanced. Grove has established a partnership with OperaBase, a comprehensive database of opera performances, and articles retrieved from New Grove Dictionary of Opera include a tab to OperaBase.

Searchability Navigation is effortless as users have four basic methods (Search, Advanced Search, Browse, and Explore). These options are always available through the top navigation menu. The welcome screen has all modes prominently displayed, and users can select the Advanced mode for full text, biographies, bibliographies, external web site links, contributors, and works lists. Three distinct modes (concept, pattern, and Boolean) offer a range of possibilities. Concept mode incorporates a thesaurus of synonyms, generating a wider range of search results—handy for students beginning a research project. Pattern is valuable when users are unsure of spelling.

Browse options include articles, abbreviations, contributors, and index. Explore allows users to find articles via a biography subject classification. Articles are classified with subdivisions according to genre, date, and nationality and include Composers, Performers, Printers and publishers, and Writers.

A basic Search box appears at the top of each page as well, and the system looks first within article headings, then subheadings, then full text. The navigation bar includes tabs to Article, Illustrations, Sounds, Related Articles, Links, and Article Search.

Once an article is retrieved, navigation is controlled via arrows or, in the case of a large article, to sections from the table of contents. Users can browse a section to locate a specific subheading. From within an article students can search for specific terms using the 'Article Search' tab. This works well with lengthy articles. Highlighted cross references within articles lead to related information.

Sibelius-enabled examples are accessible through the articles themselves, either within the body of the article text, or by clicking on the 'Illustrations' or 'Sounds' tabs. Links to 3-D images are also accessible from the 'Illustrations' tab and create an intriguing view of a particular instrument. While researching guitars we viewed inside a guitar, read and viewed the tuning of the D string, took a closer look at each of the major parts, and enlarged and moved the image to a variety of positions and sizes.

External web sites are classified as Image, Sound, Organization, Literature, and General. Users also retrieve related article links when searching for external web sites, offering students a broad view of their desired topic.

Price Discounts are available through regional library network or consortia. Site licenses for secondary schools are $350. Academic concurrent user pricing for one user is $1260; 2–14 users, $3,255. Academic site licensing based on FTE ranges from $1,575 to $15,750. Public library licenses by population served range from $1260 to $15,750. Account administrators can generate usage statistics, including number of sessions and number of turnaways. A free 30-day trial is offered to institutions.

Who Needs It? Grove Music Online is a core reference database for institutional support of music and performing arts curricula. The various approaches to searching, as well as the vast coverage of musical topics, create a resource that appeals to all levels of interested users. The inclusion of sound and 3-D image files significantly complements the authoritative content and greatly increases comprehension of concepts.

Content International Index to Music Periodicals (IIMP) Full Text, produced by Chadwyck-Healey, includes indexing and abstracts for 419 international music and performing arts periodicals (plus the complete full text for 82 journals selected by the IIMP Advisory Board) from over 20 countries. Coverage extends from 1874 to the present, with nearly 166,000 retrospective citations from 142 periodicals and includes a comprehensive range of musical genres such as classical, popular, jazz, reggae, world music, rap, hip-hop, and folk. Detailed abstracts from 1996 forward are available for each citation, and full-text options include ASCII Full Text and Text+Graphics format. New content is added on a monthly basis.

Both scholarly and popular titles are indexed, and researchers can peruse titles such as International Journal of Music Education, Jazz Education Journal, Music & Letters, as well as Reggae Report, Rolling Stone, and Spin to retrieve articles on music education, performance, ethnomusicology, musical theater, theory, popular music forms, and composition. The database also indexes feature music articles and obituaries appearing in the New York Times and Washington Post.

IIMP Full Text contains 408,000+ article records, the majority of which index the most recent eight years of publication, and the latest release includes both extended coverage and new full-text titles. Five new current-file journals are incorporated in the release: Billboard, Journal of American & Comparative Cultures, Journal of the American Musicological Society, The New Yorker, and Rolling Stone. Coverage has been extended for a number of full-text journals, and back file content has been added for core journals from the first published issue to 1990, including American Music, Early Music, Journal of the American Musicological Society, and Journal of the Royal Musical Association.

The welcome page includes a link to a new 'Librarians' Resources' section, with current and archived usage statistics, as well as other resources such as Title Lists, journal-level OpenURL links for full-text journals, and MARC records for download.

The IIMP index and abstract-only product is also available online, as well as on CD-ROM, with two new CD-ROMs released every year.

Another Chadwyck-Healey product, similar in structure but different in scope, is International Index to Performing Arts (IIPA) Full Text, which covers performing arts in a broader sense, including dance, film, television, drama, theater, stagecraft, musical theater, broadcast arts, circus performance, comedy, storytelling, opera, pantomime, puppetry, magic, and more. It indexes and abstracts 225 international performing arts periodicals, plus full text for 52 journals from nine countries (feature articles and obituaries appearing in the New York Times and Washington Post are also indexed).

The database includes over 252,000+ article records, the majority of which index the most recent six years of publication, plus 89,000+ retrospective citations from 46 periodicals, dating back to 1864. Abstracts are included for citations from 1998 to the present. A new release presents back file full text for numerous titles and the 'Librarians' Resources' site as mentioned above.

Searchability Both databases are identical in navigation and include the same search options and new functionality, so we will refer only to IIMP Full Text. The latest release features a clean look complete with simple navigation and new tools that aid in more efficient searching and results navigation. A Home link is present in the top toolbar of every page, as well as links to context-sensitive help, more about the database, etc. A repeating left-hand frame offers links to Search Articles, Search Journal Titles, Browse Journals, Selected Records, and Search History.

The welcoming screen is straightforward and allows users to navigate to the search interface directly or browse the list of journals. The Browse Journals page offers alphabetical access, and clicking on a title navigates to the main page for that journal, which includes extensive bibliographic information and the list of available issues. From here users can drill further down to individual articles. Individual journal pages now include a 'Search articles in this journal' link to retrieve articles in that particular journal. In addition to browsing by journal title, patrons can now search by journal title, keyword, ISSN, or journal language. We appreciate the ability to create a list of language-specific titles, a frequent request from modern languages faculty.

Users can 'Search for Articles' using a combination of 11 criteria, including keyword, title, author, subject categories, subject terms, document type, and ISSN. The default limit is set to search broadly across all articles in IIMP Full Text, although users can limit to articles with full text. A browse list is available for each field, or patrons can enter a keyword or phrase into the search box.

One impressive new feature is the 'Results overview,' which lets users view the search results by journal title. Clicking on the 'open results overview' link on the article results page opens a pop-up window that displays a top-level view of which journals are in the results. Records can be emailed to multiple recipients using the 'Selected Records' feature. Notes can be appended to each record for later clarification. For articles with full-text, a link to the full text is included in the email.

Other new features include a search history (both a journal search and article search) for refining, reexecuting, and combining; a bookmark utility that produces durable URLs for future use in web pages and course reading lists; and new online help files. The system allows for the standard Boolean, proximity, and truncation searching.

Price Pricing has broad ranges, depending on size of the library and number of users. Contact ProQuest for consortia discounts and database bundling information. Entry-level pricing is stated for all cases. The indexes are available for permanent purchase starting at $14,450, with subscriptions to annual updates starting at $1770. Subscription prices for index only (based on number of users): academic libraries start at $1820; publics start at $1050. For full-text versions, academics start at $3520; publics start at $1440. A free 30-day trial is offered to institutions.

Who Needs It? This pair of Chadwyck-Healey full-text databases are superb in content and organization, providing thesaurus-controlled indexing from 1996 (IIMP) and 1998 (IIPA ) onward. The broad journal coverage found in both resources will appeal to a variety of institutional settings, including public libraries, and the improved interface and additional navigational tools, as well as updated content, will greatly benefit a range of patrons. A proposed March release will include JSTOR links and speed enhancements on lists of results.

Content Since 1949, The Music Index: A Subject-Author Guide to Music Periodical Literature has exerted bibliographic control over international music periodical literature. Music Index Online, its electronic incarnation, indexes articles on all aspects and genres of music from nearly 700 publications (along with obituaries and book, record, and performance reviews) back to 1979. The scope is refreshingly egalitarian—serious research journals like Early Music and Asian Music receive the same thorough indexing as Blue Suede News: The House Organ of the Church of Rock 'n' Roll and the alt-country vehicle No Depression.

This level of inclusion is such a welcome leap forward from the music coverage of the generic databases that it feels petty to quibble about lapses, but there are a few. If Down Beat, Q, Global Rhythm, and Gramophone are indexed, we would also expect to see Jazziz, Mojo, Songlines, and BBC Music Magazine. A handful of very new titles (like Paste and Tracks) are not yet indexed, although this is more forgivable.

Searchability From its Home page, Music Index Online provides access via two search modes: Basic and Expert. Additionally, Home provides links to the periodicals indexed and to controlled Subject and Geographic lists. None of these lists are linked to the database so searchers have to cut and paste or retype journal names, subject headings, and geographic locales into their search strategies.

Basic search mode gives the searcher a single box, but the full range of Boolean operators (AND, NOT, OR), proximity (ADJ, NEAR), and wildcard and truncation options are supported, as are nesting and the use of quotation marks to find exact phrases. Multiple terms entered without operators are ANDed by default.

It is Expert mode that tells you you're really in Music Index Online. The search template consists of four keyword search boxes and pull-down menus for Boolean operations, for Index searching (Full Citation, Subject, Author, Article Title, and Journal Name), and for the three Word Form Options (Boolean, Sounds Like, and Off). Boolean Word Form automatically returns all forms of a search term. 'Sing' not only finds 'singing' but 'sang' and 'sung.' Sounds Like searches for alternate spellings.

Limits, imposed via pull-down menus, include Document Type, Language, Journal Classification, Years, Special Features (illustration, score, discography, etc.), and Journal Country. Unlike most resources, Music Index Online permits the user to search using Limits alone—'Journal Classification: Latin Music' with 'Special Features: discography'—without entering any keywords.

Music Index Online displays results lists in multiple colors and font sizes to distinguish between the components of a bibliographic citation. We soon succumbed to the system's colorful logic, though it is initially distracting. Otherwise, Music Index Online is an old-school bibliographic database. Subject headings are assigned to each article, the journal is assigned to a country and to one or more classification areas, notes are sometimes added to enhance the meaning of a title, and that's about it. No abstracts, no full text, and no linking to the library catalog, although there is full-text linking to JSTOR and and the product is OpenURL compliant.

Music Index Online enables Primary, Secondary, and Tertiary Sorting of results in ascending or descending order on several fields, but the sorting must be done prior to running a search. Extras like marking selected results, emailing, or exporting them to a citation management application are all absent.

Price The publisher displays considerable flexibility in subscription packages. A year's access to Music Index Online costs $2,195, the same price as a full print subscription. Libraries may bundle both formats together for $2,795, or opt for online access plus quarterly print issues for $2,595 or online plus the annual print cumulation for $2,395. Multicampus sites will pay $675 for each additional location. A free 30-day trial is available to prospective subscribers.

Who Needs It? It's easy to get distracted by what's missing from Music Index Online , but it's important to realize that what's missing is extraneous to the purpose of the product: achieving control over the expansive range of music literature. Music Index Online is tuned to the mindset and the needs of music researchers whether they are scholars, musicians, or just want to probe deeper than the web, the newsstand, or the all-purpose database. With bad reference resources, researchers never know what they might be missing. Libraries, particularly those with solid music and humanities programs, will move a lot further in the direction of good service with a subscription to Music Index Online.

Content Since its inception in 1987, Naxos has distinguished itself as the world's premiere label for budget classical CDs. While its roster of artists and musical ensembles might not score high in name recognition, creative excellence is Naxos's hallmark. Naxos recordings figure prominently among the annual best-of-the-year lists, and over 650 Naxos CDs have been awarded three stars by the authoritative Penguin Guide to Compact Discs.

Aside from covering the full spectrum of the classical repertoire, Naxos delves into music that the more conservative major labels don't consider lucrative enough. The Naxos catalog is supplemented by CDs from the Marco Polo label and the Danish national recording label Dacapo. More recently Naxos has broadened its perspective with subsidiary labels that focus on jazz, New Age, and world music.

This treasure chest of some 75,000 streamed audio tracks from roughly 5000 recordings forms the basis of the Naxos Music Library. Naxos Music Library is strictly a streaming service, however, which means that users cannot download and save the music they are hearing.

Subscribers have access to new material as it is released, significant since Naxos puts out over 200 CDs a year. Naxos Music Library is accessible via password or (more typically) IP address authentication, and subscribing libraries may open it up to remote users. Audio files may be streamed at near-CD quality (64K bit-rate) or at lower sampling rate (20K) more suited to dial-up users. Naxos also offers subscribers a premium 128K option.

Searchability Once connected, users choose between FM-quality levels or near-CD quality. The listener is then deposited at the Standard Search (or browse) mode of the system where the Genres menu (Classical Music, Jazz Contemporary, Jazz Legends, Nostalgia, World/Folk, New Age, and Chinese Music) is featured. With Classical Music selected, a secondary Categories menu displays, providing access to Ballet, Chamber Music, Choral, Concertos, Early Music, Educational Film music, Instrumental, Opera/Operetta, Orchestral, and Vocal tracks, as well as Collections organized by theme, nationality, instrument, or genre. A listing of CD titles, page one of 223, occupies the main portion of the screen, below an alphabetical navigation bar that facilitates browsing the title list.

Selecting a title from this browse list brings up the CD cover art and track listing. Basic player controls include a display of the track that is playing and a menu of options including Clear All selections, Play Selections, Add to Play List, and About This Recording, which takes the user to the liner notes for the selected CD. (Notes for the complete Bach cello suites run about 1200 words and may be read in English or French.)

Navigating up and down the track listing sometimes causes a brief interruption to the audio playback. Play stopped altogether when a new search was initiated. We were thrilled to note, however, that we could open a second browser window or launch another application and leave Naxos Music Library playing blissfully in the background.

Links to New Releases, a listener's personal Playlist of saved selections, and Advanced Search mode are also accessible from the Standard Search page. Clicking on Advanced Search produces a very sophisticated template where each search box is populated with the indexed field name and an example of what the user may enter. The Advanced Search template, however, is a bit overwhelming and could stand some reorganization. For example, although composer's name would be a frequent query, the Composer field is halfway down the search template, below Composer Nationality. Neither Standard nor Advanced modes support Boolean, proximity, or truncation. Help is missing as well.

How's the sound? With a broadband connection and the near-CD quality option selected, the audio quality of the Naxos Music Library is excellent, at least by Internet standards.

While the online technical notes mention requirements for Windows machines only, we had no trouble searching and listening on a Mac running OS X once we made the upgrade to Windows Media Player 9.0.

Price Annual subscriptions start at $750 for a minimum of five simultaneous users. Simultaneous users may be added in increments of one, and the more that are added, the greater the discount (up to 25 users). Beyond that point, subscribers pay $2500 plus $50 for each additional user. Consortia and larger institutions are invited to contact the company to discuss other pricing models. Interested libraries may arrange a free 30-day trial.

Consider this exercise: Amazon sells Naxos CDs for about $7 each. The label releases 200 new titles each year, which are automatically available online. Subscribers, even at the basic $750 level, are making accessible some $1400 worth of new releases alone each year.

Who Needs It? Although reviewed only days after its release, Naxos Music Library is already one of the most impressive products we have seen. It is a much better classical music collection—in breadth of coverage and performance quality—than most libraries could ever afford to assemble and manage, and it is growing (and diversifying) at an impressive rate. We hope to see specialty recordings (like the Milken Archive of American Jewish Music) and Naxos's extensive collection of spoken-word recordings added. We question if users will completely embrace a music resource that does not support downloading, burning to CD, or exporting to a portable listening device. Nevertheless, the Naxos Music Library is an exceptionally well-realized product that most libraries would be thrilled to offer and listeners fortunate to experience.

Content Dating from 1967 through the present, RILM Abstracts of Music Literature is published by Répertoire International de Littérature Musicale (RILM) and heralded by music devotees as 'the premier index to music literature,' as well as 'the world's largest, continuously updated' international bibliography of scholarly material. It includes articles, books, bibliographies, dissertations, catalogs, Festschriften, iconographies, critical commentaries to complete works, e-publications, ethnographic recordings, conference proceedings, concert reviews, and recording notes. RILM contains 330,000+ records in over 202 languages from 5200 journals, with approximately 20,000 new entries added each year.

The online version of RILM includes thousands of current citations published as recently as last month. These searchable citations are replaced with RILM's abstracted and indexed records as soon as they become available. Updated monthly, new current citations and new complete records are added to the database, and complete entries include original-language titles, title translations in English, full bibliographic information, and abstracts in English, as well as author, journal, and in-depth subject indexes.

Subject areas include everything imaginable: historical musicology, ethnomusicology, instruments and voice, librarianship, performance practice and notation, theory and analysis, pedagogy, liturgy, dance, criticism, and music therapy, along with various interdisciplinary studies on music and related fields.

RILM recently announced that the publication Speaking of Music: Music Conferences, 1835–1966 will be available in early 2004. This volume, the fourth in the 'RILM Retrospective Series,' covers 500 music conferences back to the early 19th century.

RILM has been the principal resource for libraries and music scholars for the past 35 years, and it is available in hardcover as an annual volume; on CD-ROM (MuSe: Music Search), produced and distributed by NISC; and online from NISC, CSA, EBSCO, OCLC, and Ovid.

Each vendor has an array of options. RILM Abstracts through the CSA Internet Database Service includes links to full text via a subscriber's holdings, and search strategies can be controlled by 40 drop-down field categories. EBSCO's version provides 'SmartLinks' to full text from 275 journals indexed in RILM and available in Academic Search Elite (350 if subscribed to Premier). OCLC's FirstSearch offers interconnection with WorldCat and other per search and subscription databases. Ovid's SilverPlatter platform is accessible for local networks and Internet access, and institutions can take advantage of cross-database searching of

RILM, International Federation of Film Archives, and Bibliography of the History of Art through an 'Arts Package.'

Searchability We previewed NISC's BiblioLine search engine, principally because RILM can now be cross-searched along with RIPM: Retrospective Index to Music Periodicals (see Other Sources, page opposite), the subset RIPM: Index to English-Language Music Periodicals (1818–1950), and RISM: International Inventory of Musical Sources After 1600 (see Other Sources, page opposite), if subscribed. RILM citations are also now linked to full text via OpenURL or NISCLink if an institution has a subscription to any of the indexed journals.

The interface is simple. The default setting for our trial provided access via the BiblioLine BASIC Interface. BASIC is a frameless interface offering limited fields for searching. We were easily able to switch to BiblioLine PRO, the advanced option, through a link at the top of the screen. PRO is presented as three 'Search Modes' to accommodate users of all levels: QUICK mode provides a Basic Search. ADVANCED offers 18 field searching options. EXPERT is an updated version of the traditional online set-searching format. This mode features full editing capability of the entire search strategy across all search sets.

We limited the majority of our preview to BASIC, and PRO–ADVANCED mode. BiblioLine BASIC search page features four tabs: About, Search, Results, and Output. BASIC is the perfect mode to execute simple as well as complex searches in an efficient way. Although plain and simple, precision searching can take place using integrated Boolean logic, field limits, field searching, truncation, and range operators. The results page allows displays and sorts citations by a variety of options. Detailed cross references are displayed with search results to guide users to related terms. Navigation is straightforward, and there are four output options: email, export to database, save as text, and print.

If that doesn't cut it, then BiblioLine PRO includes access to the three modes mentioned above; Save/Retrieve Search; Thesaurus browse; Index browse; sounds like feature; and a search of the 18 different indexes.

The NISC site provides an extensive tutorial that users can view online or download for faster access. According to RILM, the documentation and online help was 'the most comprehensive and informative of those of RILM's five online vendors.' An Options Menu allows subscription administrators to customize many aspects of the user interface.

As we go to press, NISC is implementing new features and has announced that a new music database will be released in the second quarter of 2004, Index to Printed Music: Collections & Series. For more information, visit the web site.

Price See each vendor for individual/consortial pricing information. For all colleges with FTE under 1000 that do not specialize in the performing arts or music, RILM in cooperation with all vendors will give 50 percent off the regular subscription rate. Free trials are available.

Who Needs It? Just about any institution that wants to support its music curriculum, programs, or departments should consider placing this resource at the top of the list. Longevity goes a long way, and the depth and breadth is not easily comparable. Although we found NISC's BiblioLine to be a superb interface, the product is readily available through many other vendors.