The use of the Musica database for choral repertoire searches is mainly performed in 2 ways :

- by connecting to the Web site http://www.musicanet.org
- by use of the Musica CD-ROM (available at the Musica members, by mail and by on-line order)

These 2 possibilities, far from being concurrent, are in fact very complementary, and we present the main differences to you here, in order to allow you to optimize your use of our service to the choral conductor :

even if the Website becomes more up to date than the CD-ROM after a while, the CD-ROM offers many additional possibilities, and it should always be used first:

- the software of the CD-ROM is more user-friendly than the search engine of the Web, because it is not limited by the HTML language.

- the possibility to display the list of existent terms (or authority list) of each field of the documentary structure (by pushing key F6 or Cmd-6) facilitates greatly the search strategy and allows immediate viewing of the number of answers for each criterion, even before having performed the search. This important feature is not available on the Web because of the heavy traffic it would induce on the server.

- Musica database is often used for creating lists of titles for a given subject, theme, period of time, composer,... : such a list can go up to 5,000 answers for a single search on CD-ROM, while it is limited to the 50 first answers on the Web.

- Printing a list is easy and complete with the CD-ROM.

- Sorting of a list according to numerous criteria is possible before display or print out (by composers, by authors of text, by titles, by publishers)

- The display of the musical theme on the CD-ROM often allows the choice of the right piece if there are "homonyme" records (for instance "masses" or "magnificats" of a same composer)

- If for certain countries, the access to the Web is free, it is not true for many of you, and the price of calls to access the Internet can easily become more expensive than buying a CD-ROM with a private use license.

As a complement to a search on CD-ROM, the Web site allows you to check for updated information for a given search, and/or if incomplete information on the CD-ROM has been completed meanwhile.

Let us not forget that the website of Musica offers numerous other features such as the information on Musica sessions, the possibility to submit scores to the database, ... features that are not on the CD-ROM.

Using the CD-ROM normally, and visiting from time to time the website of Musica seems therefore a logical behaviour for every curious choral conductor.