We have heard this question a few times now, and it’s a valid one. LC’s Program for Cooperative Cataloging (PCC) has recommended against an automated conversion of the 260 fields to 264 if the record is a serial or integrating resource. It is difficult or impossible to program this reliably. Since MARCIVE follows PCC recommendations, records coded as serials or integrating resources will not have the 260 changed to 264. It IS acceptable to manually change these locally.

PCC additionally recommends not changing the 260 for multi-volumes items. After reviewing records and doing extensive testing, MARCIVE is excluding records with date type [008/06] m, c, d, e, k, i, q, or u in the programming used to convert 260 fields to 264 fields. This is being done to avoid the risk of creating incorrect 264 second indicator values.

For more information about the 264 field, see the PCC guidelines about this field.

Written by Joan Chapa, MLS