For the First Time in 16 Years, Library of Congress is Rolling Out a New Cataloging-in-Publication (CIP) Database Named PrePub Book Link (PPBL)

From the Library of Congress Blog:

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 It’s called PrePub Book Link (PPBL), and it overhauls the sturdy-but-outdated 2003 system.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.

“It’s a very significant milestone,” says Karl Debus-López, chief of the U.S. Programs, Law, and Literature Division, which oversees the program. “It’s a success story of collaborative work.”

Learn More, Read the Complete Blog Post

Direct to PrePub Book Link Website

Note: Official Launch of PrePub Web Link was made on May 8, 2019.