----------------------------Original message----------------------------
Hello Mr. Fieber,
        We use GEODEX in our Map Library, so I'll try to answer a few of
your questions.  While I have not used it for the Miscellaneous
Investigations Series, I have set it up for our hydrographic charts which
as you know have very irregular boundaries and varying scales.  We have
about six files in order to deal with the scales.  It is ideal for us as
we have such a mixture of sheets from international agencies that it was
impossible to acquire paper catalogues to show what we had.  This way we
are able to enter coordinates for an area of which we want to find charts
that would include it.  We also use it for our current Canadian
hydrographic charts, though more as an inventory control or holdings card,
as the paper indexes are pretty good for these.
        The sheet names are indexed, if you set it up properly.  You have
two searchable fields which we usually do as sheet number and sheet name,
order depending upon which is usually the first choice in searching.  I
find that sheet names may not always be easy to look for because we
usually don't have them to begin a search.  Print-outs may be sorted on
either of these fields, plus computer record number and coordinates.
        I'm not sure about upper limits.  We are currently housing our
records on a 286 with who knows what else and a 386 with a good sized
hard disc.  We are also using the American Geographical Society records
for the Canadian 1:50 000 topographic maps, which have about 20,000
records in two files (one is over 8,000 and the other is over 13,000) to
which we are adding as we reconcile their records to ours.  The
hydrographic charts of Canadian areas have about 1,500 records in 4 files
while the non-Canadian are about 800 in 2 files.  The Canadian 1:500 000
topographic maps have 648 records.
        Hope that this will give you some ideas about how to use GEODEX.
           Alberta
|===========================================================================|
|Alberta Auringer Wood, Map Librarian, Memorial University of Newfoundland, |
|St. John's, Newfoundland, CANADA  A1B 3Y1.  phone: 709-737-8892;           |
|     fax: 709-737-2153;     Internet:  [log in to unmask]             |
|===========================================================================|