Craig,

To be hopefully helpful to patrons, I use the 522 field most often for any kind of map that encompasses a non-jurisdictional area that is not well-explained by a title (or one of two or more titles) and/or subject heading(s). This can be an area that overlaps multiple states or countries or counties, the area encompassing a river watershed or even the path of a river (or similar body of water) that flows across two or more jurisdictions, or even a multi-county area within a state (or similar situation in another country).

Another way I use this field is to convey how many sheets completes the geographic coverage intended by a map set or series when using just "maps" in the 300$a field. For instance, you will see the following note sometimes:

522 Geographic coverage complete in 68 sheets.

Of course, an alternate means of conveying this kind of information is to use a 500 note. That said, why use a "general" note when there's one established that focuses on geographic area situations.

Paige Andrew
Cartographic Resources Cataloging Librarian
Penn State University
________________________________
From: Maps-L: Map Librarians, etc. <[log in to unmask]> on behalf of Craig Thomas <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Tuesday, February 22, 2022 12:55 PM
To: [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: 522 field

Hi all,

This is my first query to the group.

Could anyone give me some guidelines on the use of the 522 field? The MAGIRT Guidelines and MARC 21 provide information concerning its use, that is, to provide additional information about the geographic coverage of the map (usually survey maps), "particularly in cases where the coverage is not clearly indicated by the title, is not easily defined by a single name, covers small portions of multiple jurisdictions, etc." (MAGIRT). However, the note is not indexed in Connexion. That being the case, when (or why) would one tend to use this field as opposed to the general 500 nature and scope of item note, which is indexed?

Thank you for your collective wisdom!

Best regards,
Craig

Craig Thomas
Senior Operations Cataloger
Metadata Creation
Harvard Library Information and Technical Services
Email: [log in to unmask]
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625 Massachusetts Avenue
Cambridge, MA  02139
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