OK. For anyone who may be searching for a similar answer, I'm going to try to explain the solution.

As renrig pointed out, the number of bind_cols did not match, and as NetWallah pointed out, I had added a new constraint to the SQL query. A close reading of the query brought me to a slightly different set of bind_cols. Perhaps the experts can forgive a newbie's lack of understanding of the whole picture, but I did not "get" the relationship between the select statement and the bind_cols. It seems I needed to account for everything in the select statement in the bind_cols, although the book I was reading told me I could pick and choose which to bind. Anyway, the new set of bind_cols:

$sth->bind_col( 1, \$bib_id );
$sth->bind_col( 2, \$_title_marc );
$sth->bind_col( 3, \$timedate );
$sth->bind_col( 4, \$callno );
$sth->bind_col( 5, \$mfhd_id );
$sth->bind_col( 6, \$trash );
$sth->bind_col( 7, \$location );
$sth->bind_col( 8, \$loca_id );
$sth->bind_col( 9, \$isbn );
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These match, point for point, the select statement. The "trash" column, number 6, refers to the second To_Char. I still don't really understand why this was necessary, but when I added it, the query ran. I knew this because it started throwing errors when the script tried to insert the data into my newbooks table: "DBD::Oracle::db do failed: ORA-00947: not enough values"

Progress! Errors are good! :-)

This is the code I needed to look at:

$dbh->do (qq{insert into newbooks values('$s_title','$timedate','$subj
+ect','','$callno','$url','$display_date','$location','$loca_id','$isb
+n')});
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Turns out the code was fine, but my table was off. I created a new table in the Oracle database that matched, in order and precisely, the above values. I then ran the script and it populated the table! Eureka!

Again, not Earth-shaking for the experts out there, but for someone who is trying to come to grips with the way programming works, this was. I hope it may help someone else someday.