Checklist of Points To Consider When Evaluating Next Generation Catalogs:
By Sarah Canino, Music librarian Vassar College

· What features come with the product? Which come at an additional cost or from a third party vendor?
Social networking Library 2.0?
Contents notes?
Reviews?
Book jacket images?
Spell-checking?
Ratings? [Can you alter the way they look or turn them off?]
Static URLs?

· Technical questions:
Is the system a turn-key operation or is technical expertise/programming required of the staff?
Post implementation, how much support is provided by the vendor and at what cost?
How much customization is possible and at what cost?

· Tags:
What does the selection of a Tag really do?
Limit your discovery path further?
Start a new path?
Is there a research record of your activities or "trail"?
How are the Tags populated? Where do they originate? (Which MARC fields?)
Are they useful for music searches?

· Is authority control operational in the product? (Do "see" and "see also" references work?) If so, how?

· Sorting:
Once you do your initial search can you sort by author/composer?
OR
Is there a facet to limit by author/composer?

· Scoping vs facets:
Is scoping beforehand a possibility or is it only possible post search-- via facets?
Are facets negotiable? How many are there and is there a limit? Is it an extra fee?

· How are diacritics handled-or not handled --in the catalog?

· Is advanced searching available? (Like the traditional catalog)

· Can Internet or other local database resources be integrated into the online catalog? If so how and are they searchable?
Examples:
Importation of Biographical information?
Book jackets? Other graphics?
Reviews?
Contents notes?

· Social networking limitations:
What if you only want certain groups (like faculty members) to annotate books records/ write reviews in your catalog and not others. Do you have control over who performs this activity? Or do you simply have the option to turn it all on or off?

· Retrieval displays:
In what order are "Hits" displayed?
Are Uniform titles displayed?
Call numbers?
Item status?

· Overall how well are bibliographic records for music materials displayed? Are graphics useful and informative? Do accidentals display? Are they searchable?

· Search examples:
Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, Felix. Fingal's cave (Hebriden)
Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus. Zauberflöte (Magic flute)
Clemens, Samuel (Mark Twain)
Dostoyevsky, Fyodor

· What Next Gen catalogs are currently available?
Proprietary:
Endeca's ProFind (http://www.endeca.com/) ( NCSU Libraries)
ExLibris' Primo (http://www.exlibrisgroup.com/category/PrimoForYourLibrary)
Innovative Interfaces' Encore (http://www.encoreforlibraries.com/main.html)
MediaLab's AcquaBrowser (http://www.medialab.nl/)
SirsiDynix Enterprise 2.0--released in January 2009 (http://www.sirsidynix.com/Newsevents/Releases/2009/20090116_enterprise2_0.pdf)
Talis' Prism3 (http://www.talis.com/prism/)
WorldCat Local (http://www.oclc.org/worldcatlocal/default.htm)
VTLS Virtua (http://www.vtls.com/products/virtua)
Open Source:
LibLime's Koha Zoom (http://liblime.com/products/koha/koha-zoom)
Scriblio (Formerly WPopac) (http://about.scriblio.net/)
UVA's Blacklight (http://lib.virginia.edu/digital/resndev/blacklight.html)
VuFind (http://www.vufind.org/)