Library of Congress Blog: “It’s in (almost) every book you read, but you’ve probably paid little attention to it. The Library’s Cataloging in Publication (CIP) information — that copy-block on the reverse side of the book’s title page spelling out the author, title, subject, its International Standard Book Number, and other information — is an essential beginning to a book’s publication. The Cataloging information provided by the Library allows publishers to get the book’s information relayed to libraries and booksellers months in advance of publication — ask any author how important that is — and keeps the publication process rolling. (It’s different from copyrights, although the Library does that, too.)

And now, for the first time in 16 years, the Library is rolling out an all-new CIP database. It’s called PrePub Book Link (PPBL), and it overhauls the sturdy-but-outdated 2003 system. Book buyers won’t notice any changes, but publishers and Library staff certainly will. The overhaul took more than one and a half years, involves more than 3,000 major scholarly and trade publishers and more than 50,000 books each year. The Library’s system for smaller publishing houses, the Preassigned Control Number Program, will be merged into PPBL, too…”