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From a original batch cataloging project back in 2017

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Preliminaries

This procedure is useful for spreadsheets of titles to be converted to MARC, with both a combination of year numerals and text and/or punctuation inclusions in the 260/264 c subfield, or multiple dates (such as seen in estimated dates or multivolume/serial publications. For completeness, I have also included a simple method for clean, single dates.

264 New York, NY : |b International Music, |c ©1934. ← copyright symbol

260 [New York?] : |b Thomas Fischer, |c 1889-1891. ← multiple dates

260 Boston, Mass. : |b Forester Press, |c [between 1899 and 1904] ← questionable dates

  1. In the spreadsheet create two date columns to hold the fixed fields dates,

  2. Copy/Paste the publication data column (260/264c) into the Date 1 column,

  3. Use Excel Find/Replace functions to remove any text or punctuation,

  4. Then use Excel to split into two columns for any multiple dates:

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Leader: change to Level I cataloging

  1. Click on Edit LDR/008 in the Options area, click on LDR, and chose the format.

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3. Click OK to close the Edit LDR/008 window; then click Next

008 field: a simple method for populating dates

This only works well for single years without any other text in the subfield: replace the existing s9999 in the Edit LDR/008 box with this function: s{264$c}:

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008 field: complex date population using two Donor Fields

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  1. Go through usual mapping of Excel columns to MARC fields as usual, but map the two clean date columns to an unused 9xx field. I used 902 and 903 in this particular example.

  2. The 264 column and the two date columns will need these values

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Check the records for errors and do a Edit; Find; Find All on =008 to check that the move went through without changing the number of spaces in the 008 (there should be eight digits of numbers (for those records with 903 fields), side-by-side, no spaces, between the “s” and “xx”).

The 008 Date Type position (6) now needs changing for the records with two dates in position 7 & 11.

To get an idea of what edits need to be done, do a Find All on =903

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Almost all of the 903 field dates are 19uu (with a 902 of 18uu).

  • Edit Field Data can be used to replace 19uu with q:

  • Field: 903

  • Find: 19uu

  • Replace: q

  • Click Process

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A total of 154 modifications were made. 4 more records will require manual changes (one of which is the first dummy record, so it can be ignored).

  • Do Find all: for =903, to find the three remaining dates.

  • Then Edit Field Data to replace each year with an m.

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One:

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Two:

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Three:

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A Find All on =903 now shows all but the first dummy record have 903 fields populated by the 008 DtSt codes.

Finally, use the 903 as a donor field for the 008 position 6 (DtSt).

  • Tools; Edit Subfield Data,

  • Field: 903

  • Subfield: a

  • Field Data: leave blank

  • Replace with: 008|6

  • Click Move subfield data box

  • Replace Text

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  • Do a Find All on =008 to see if the 903 codes came through correctly:

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Note: while running these 008 edits, I always did a Save as for the 008 date change under a different name, just in case one of the steps went horribly wrong:

ChampClassicTest12c before the 008 edits

ChampClassicTest12DtSt after the 008 edits

The last step is to remove the donor fields.

  • Tools; Add/Delete Field

  • Field: 902

  • (Leave the rest blank);

  • Delete Field:

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  • Then do the same to delete the 903 field.

Quality Check: always check for errors after the modifications of the 008 fixed field.

  • Assuming all went well with all the steps, it’s time to take a good hard look at the records as they now appear: Open OCLC Bib Formats & Standards on a Browser and (for the leader and 008) MARC21, and check through each field for errors that might have been missed during earlier steps.

  • Run MarcEdit’s validator to look for structural errors by going to Reports; MARCValidator:

    • Source File: [Current File]

    • Options: Validate Record (Default)

    • Click OK

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If there are errors shown in the Results box, save the report to a notebook or PDF, and keep it open to refer to while correcting each error.

  • Then work through each error in MarcEdit until all are fixed.

  • And finally, the 008 dates are done!

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