Bibliography formatting software packages have evolved significantly since their first appearance in the early 80's, and now can be seen as a tool for completely managing textual databases. Their object is not exclusively bound to bibliographic citations, but more generally to textual data. It is common that fields attributes cannot be changed at will or moved to another field. It is common that all the fields automatically have their content indexed and thus searchable. This process consists in inserting references to database records into a document prepared by means of a word processor, in order to eventually have all the in-text citations and the final reference list automatically generated and formatted within the document.
Printing includes sorting records according to nested keys.
Increasingly they embed or work in co-operation with Z39.50 search clients ready to import the retrieved and downloaded data. These are all features that one cannot usually find in generic and relational DBMS like dbase, Access, FileMaker, Paradox. Librarians and information professionals would benefit from a closer glance at this kind of product as it is the most specific bibliographical computerized tool that their users might employ. Thanks to downloading and importing routines, these software packages play a role in facilitating information and data communication between local or remote catalogues and the end-user. The document that I am presenting here is a detailed analysis of this kind of product achieved by means of an evaluation template with a checklist in table form.