----------------------------Original message----------------------------
Bill,
     I'm not sure if you are asking for a specific database product.  You
will see reference to GEODEX on Maps-L.  It was developed by Christopher
Baruth.
 
     If you are looking for something to help you learn Marc record format,
one possible resource, is MitiNet Marc.  My contact person was in California:
Jeff Epstein at 1-800-824-6272.  Jeff sent me a perusal copy of the software
and I was very impressed.  I found that it had only one deficiency (but major
for our purposes).  It is intended to help library folk who needed to learn
and use Marc.  Most of those in its intended audience are non-MLS people, but
I think MLS people who need to build Marc record skills would find it useful.
 
     MitiNet Marc leads you through a Marc record field by field using either
the numbers (so loved by catalogers who speak Marc fluently) or by using
Mnemonic labels.  You can choose which of these you want and can flip back
and forth if you want.  It also allows the setting of an example of each
field to let you know what sort of information goes there.  This is a VERY
cursory statement of its power.  There are many things I found which make it
easy to recommend.
 
     Jeff told me earlier this spring, in a follow-up call, that the
deficiency -- not supporting the full ALA character set -- would be taken
care of in the release scheduled for August 1993.  The characters which might
most concern you with this are the prime, and double prime which are the
standards for map coordinates' minutes and seconds.  I don't now recall if it
supported the superscript 0 which is used for the degree symbol.  (Our other
need was for transliterated Middle Eastern languages which use several
diacritic characters).  Our primary interest was for our part-time students
(i.e. NO MLS) to use for doing retrospective conversion of manual
bibliographic records.  We were also interested in it to help new
paraprofessional staff learn the tagging and coding rules needed for our
library's level of bibliographic record entry.
 
     If you want to look at it, give Jeff a call.
 
Debra Lords
[log in to unmask]
Marriott Library
University of Utah
Salt Lake City, Utah  84112