From a original batch cataloging project back in 2017
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Preliminary spreadsheet edits:
The Donor fields procedure is useful for spreadsheets of titles to be converted to MARC, with both a combination of year numerals and text inclusions in the 260/264 c subfield column, or multiple dates (such as seen in estimated dates or multivolume/serial publications). For completeness, I have also included a simple method for spreadsheets with clean, single-year dates.
264 New York, NY :
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$b International Music,
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$c ©1934. ← copyright symbol and period
260 [New York?] :
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$b Thomas Fischer,
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$c 1889-1891. ← multiple dates with hyphen & period
260 Boston, Mass. :
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$b Forester Press,
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$c [between 1899 and 1904] ← questionable dates: words &brackets
In the spreadsheet create insert two date columns to hold the fixed fields dates,
Copy/Paste Use a function to place the publication data column (260/264c) into the Date 1 column,
Use Excel Find/Replace functions to remove any text or punctuation,
Then use Excel to split into two columns for any multiple dates:
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Leader: change to Level I cataloging
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 find/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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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.
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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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Then work through each error in MarcEdit until all are fixed.
And finally, the 008 dates are done!
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