Batch Work: 008 dates for Original Batches in MarcEdit

From a original batch cataloging project back in 2017

(This old workflow could use some refining: feel free to add suggestions & comments.)

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:

Begin transforming the Excel spreadsheet to MARC.

• Open MarcEdit, and click on Delimited Text Translator.

• Source File: click on the Folder icon and navigate to the spreadsheet.

• Output File: Click on the folder icon, navigate to the desktop, and give the future MarcEdit file a name.

• Make sure the Delimiter is set to Tab:

Fixed Fields:

Leader: change to Level I cataloging

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

2. For most batch cataloging projects, we should locate the leader’s I (capital i) and replace it with K (for brief cataloging), unless the data is very complete, and has been thoroughly checked for compatibility with the current cataloging rules.

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}:

Back to the procedure:

008 field: date population using two Donor Fields

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

3. Click Finish as usual.

4. Open the newly converted MarcEdit file by clicking on MarcEditor; then navigate to the new mrk file. This batch original project was for a large collection of old music scores:

Move the dates in the 902 and 903 fields to the field 008 Dates (position 7 and 11)

• Under Tools;

• Open Edit Subfield data and fill in these values,

• Field: 902

• Subfield: a

• Field Data: leave blank

• Replace with: 008|7|||

• Click the box next to Move subfield data:

• Click Replace Text

The results box should show the same number of records as the entire file:

Scan through the file and/or do an Edit; Find; Find All on =008 to see if the dates transferred without distorting the number of fixed spaces in the 008 field (the year should replace the 9999 after the “s”; and be followed by four bars):

Move the 903 field date into the 008 second Date position, by substituting 11 for 7 in the Replace with area.

• Field: 903

• Subfield: a

• Field Data: leave blank

• Replace with: 008|11|||

• Check Move subfield data

• Click Replace Text.

The results box will show a much lower amount of records changed for the second date:

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

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

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.

One:

Two:

Three:

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

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

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:

• 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

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!