When merging (or “copy and merging”) bibliographic records, Vanderbilt’s instance of Alma relies on the merge rule “OverlayAllFieldsButVULocal”. This rule specifies how the following MARC fields will be treated in any such record merge and by which conditions. This list should be updated whenever a change to the merge rule is made. Any fields that are not listed will presumably be overwritten if a record is merged.
| MARC Field | Retained from old record? | Conditions | Notes |
| 001 | Y | ||
| 014 | Y | ||
| 035 | Y | When contains van_inst, SIRSI, Sirsi, or ExL | |
| 049 | Y | ||
| 066 | Y | ||
| 098 | Y | ||
| 500 | Y | When contains $5 TNJ | |
| 501 | Y | ||
| 505 | Y | When contains $5 TNJ | Added 5/5/2022 |
| 506 | Y | ||
| 520 | Y | When contains $5 TNJ | |
| 533 | Y | When contains $5 TNJ | |
| 540 | Y | Added 6/17/2021 | |
| 541 | Y | ||
| 563 | Y | Added 3/6/2025 | |
| 583 | Y | When contains $5 TNJ | |
| 590 | Y | ||
| 600, 610, 611, 650, 651, 655 | N | Deleted if contains $2 fast | |
| 600, 610, 611, 650, 651, 655 | Y | When contains $5 TNJ | Added 8/19/2022 |
| 700, 710, 711, 730 | Y | When contains $5 TNJ | |
| 773 | Y | ||
| 774 | Y | ||
| 780 | Y | ||
| 800, 810, 811, 830 | Y | When contains $5 TNJ | |
| 856 | Y | When contains $5 TNJ | Added 12/12/2022 |
| 938 | N | ||
| 948 | N | ||
| all other 9XX | Y |
Added 3/6/2025 by JSch at the request of the cataloging group.