LCCN, November 12, 2013
ISSN 2324-6464 CIP, ECIP, and EPCN What are they and what is the difference? Part 1 by Schamell Padgett, Head, CIP Publisher Liaison Team and Karl Debus-López, Chief, U.S. Programs, Law, and Literature Division The Cataloging in Publication (CIP) Program has a track record as one of the Librarys longstanding and highly productive endeavors. The CIP Program is now in its 42nd year of existence and has undergone many changes, particularly in the last few years, to keep up with corresponding shifts in the publishing industry and library landscape. This is the first in a series of articles to explain all aspects of CIP and its component parts. Exactly what is the CIP Program? The CIP Program is principally a metadata creation program, created to serve the nation's libraries by cataloging books in advance of publication. Publishers submit applications via the Library of Congress website. The Library creates a bibliographic record for each publication and sends it to the publisher. (http://www.loc.gov/publish/cip/) As many of you who read LCCN know, the CIP prepublication metadata that are created by the Library of Congress are then distributed electronically through various distribution channels and become the principal Library of Congress source of copy cataloging for new publications from major U.S. publishers. So, while the publishers benefit from receiving CIP metadata that they can use for their own marketing or other internal purposes; the Program was principally crafted as a service for all of the nations libraries, whether they be public, school, academic, research, corporate, or special libraries. The two main components of the CIP Program are the Electronic Cataloging in Publication (ECIP) Program and the Electronic Preassigned Control Number (EPCN) Program. In addition, there are two growing sub-programs of ECIP the CIP E-book Program and the ECIP Cataloging Partnership Program. We will focus in future articles on the CIP E-book and ECIP Cataloging Partnership programs, but today let us discuss the ECIP and EPCN programs. . Electronic Cataloging in Publication Program An estimated 5,300 publisher imprints currently participate in the ECIP program. In order to be eligible for the ECIP Program a publishing house must have published books by more than three different authors and have an established publishing history of books that are widely acquired by the nations libraries. Eligible publishers send the Library of Congress electronic galleys, or copyedited manuscripts, of their forthcoming publications. Before 1999, the galleys were received in print format at the Library. More than 99 percent of the galleys are now received in electronic format. Galleys are accessed through the ECIP Traffic Manager, a web-based application used by the Library of Congress staff who work with ECIPs and by our ECIP Cataloging Partners at other institutions. The galleys submitted represent a broad spectrum of publishers whose titles are of primary interest to both the Library of Congress and the nations libraries. The imprints include all major trade houses, university presses, medical and scientific presses, associations, societies, and a number of multinational publishing houses. The Library of Congress creates pre-publication metadata for approximately 50,000 new monographic titles each year through the ECIP Program. The librarians that prepare the bibliographic records assign the authoritative name of the author, LC Subject Headings, LC Classification numbers, Dewey Decimal Classification numbers, and other key bibliographic elements of the title. Wherever possible, the Library of Congress converts ONIX-supplied data (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onix_%28publishing_protocol%29) received from the publisher to MARC format and includes tables of content and summary information in the record. The metadata are close to a complete bibliographic record when finalized by the Library of Congress cataloging staff members or partner institutions. The metadata are sent to the publisher, who usually prints the data on the verso of the title page of the book if it is in printed format. If the book is electronic, the information is provided on the Copyright statement page for the electronic version. The publisher includes the metadata on websites and publisher announcements. The publisher can also use the metadata for internal reporting purposes. Meanwhile, the metadata are distributed to bibliographic utilities and vendors by the Library of Congress so that they can be used broadly by others. The bibliographic metadata for the ECIP title are also available in the Library of Congress Online Catalog. During the 42 years since the CIP program was established, CIP pre-publication metadata data have been prepared for a cumulative total of more than 1.6 million titles. As mentioned previously, these records are a very rich source of copy cataloging for new U.S. imprints used by libraries worldwide. Electronic Preassigned Control Number Program (EPCN) The EPCN Program allows publishers to receive a Library of Congress Control Number (LCCN) without going through the close to full cataloging process that occurs with the ECIP Program. The LCCN, a 10 digit control number, is assigned before the book is published, and the Library asks that the number be printed on the verso of the title page. The EPCN Program is helpful for those publishers who may not be eligible for the ECIP Program. This category of publishers includes many small and local publishers as well as larger subsidy publishers and print-on-demand publishers. They represent a rich source of materials, particularly for genealogical works and local and military history. As more authors turn to self-publishing, the EPCN Program may become an even more important source for building the Librarys collections. During 2012, the Library processed 52,287 applications and assigned 50,364 LCCNs, a 17% increase over the previous year, and established 4,263 publisher accounts. The total number of EPCN publisher accounts is now 56,966. The EPCN Program is a very large and growing program that is specifically tailored for the needs of smaller presses. There are two steps involved before participating in the EPCN Program. The publisher must first complete an Application to Participate and an account number and password are assigned. Afterwards, the publisher submits a single-page application form to secure an LCCN. The title must meet the eligibility requirements and must be submitted prior to publication. At the Library, a CIP Publisher Liaison reviews each request to ensure that the book is in scope for the EPCN program. Assuming the title is eligible, the liaison assigns a machine-generated LCCN to the application and sends it to the publisher via e-mail with printing and submission instructions. Once the number is assigned, the publisher is obligated to send one complimentary copy of the best edition of the published book to the ABA Directorate at the Library. This copy will be reviewed for the Librarys permanent collection. A partial cataloging record is automatically created for many of the books received through the EPCN program. If the book is later selected for the Librarys permanent collections, it is fully cataloged by staff at the Library of Congress and the same preassigned control number printed in the book becomes a part of the catalog record. If the title is not selected, the control number is still used as a record identification number by libraries contributing their own cataloging records to national databases. In our next posting we will talk more about the Electronic Preassigned Control Number Program and how it relates to what we have discussed today. Until then, if you have any questions about CIP, feel free to contact Karl ( <mailto:[email protected]> [email protected]) or Schamell ( <mailto:[email protected]> [email protected]) or consult the CIP home page for more information. ________________________________ Disclaimer: This message does not represent official Library of Congress communications. Links to external Internet sites on Library of Congress Web pages do not constitute the Library's endorsement of the content of their Web sites or of their policies or products. Please read our Standard Disclaimer. (http://www.loc.gov/global/disclaim.html) LCCN is available in electronic form only and is free of charge. Please forward it to anyone who might be interested in reading this article and/or subscribing. To subscribe, send a mail message to [email protected] with the text: subscribe lccn [firstname lastname]. Please be sure that the text is the body of the message, not the subject line. And if you wish to see previous postings from this listserv, go to http://sun8.loc.gov/listarch/lccn.html Melanie Polutta Library of Congress ALAWE Iberia/Rio Librarian cataloger [email protected]
