Changing Special Field Codes

Choose Change special field from the Choose Command Type dialog box to open the Change Special Field dialog box.

Global Update uses your entries to change data in the special MARC 006, 007, and 008 fields.

Default data appears in the Record Type, MARC Tag, Format, Element, and Find fields. You can leave the default values or choose new values for these fields. To choose new values, enter the value you want or select one from the list that appears when you begin typing. Alternatively, double-click a field to select from a button grid of valid values for that field. Click the button labelled with the value you want, or type the grid number appearing in the upper left corner of the button, and then choose OK.

To change special field data:

  1. Specify a Record Type. The record types you selected in the Select records tab determine the valid options.
  2. Enter a MARC Tag. The tag you enter determines the options appearing in the Format field.
  3. Enter a Format. The format you enter determines the options appearing in the Element field. Leaving the default value of <all> retrieves all elements for all formats in the Element field.
  4. Enter an Element. Global Update identifies Element values by both their byte number within the MARC field and their name, for example, 15 Country. For 008 field data in the record leader, an 'L' precedes the byte number, for example, REC TYPE=L06.
  5. Enter a Find value. The default value of <any> renders all values in the selected field valid for change. Select (check) the Validate field check box to force validation of the Find value. Clear (uncheck) this check box to allow entry of any value.
  6. Enter a Replace value. The system accepts only valid codes in this field.
Required Data for Changing Special Fields

To change special fields, you must include the following data:

  • Record Type
  • MARC Tag
  • Format
  • Element
  • Replace
  1. After specifying the data to change, choose OK to close the dialog box and return to the Command input tab. The command you created appears as a single line, for example:

The command row includes a Command column and an Action column. The Command column indicates the type of command you specified. (Special = Change special field.) The Action column indicates the target field and the replacement value in the format old data ==> new data. A wild card character or word, such as a period ('.'), an equal sign ('='), or <any>, may represent some data fields with unspecified (default) content.

In the example above, the system identifies bibliographic records ('b') with an 008 MARC tag ('008') indicating the format Books ('a, m') with a Country value 'ir' and changes the Country value to 'ie'.

  1. To create more change commands, see Creating Commands for Changing Records. Choose the Preview tab to view the effects of your commands. Choose Process in the Preview tab to apply the changes.