Pub advice: What are these numbers?

Hi Joe,

I am getting my first book ready. I have the isbn etc but not the PS8623 ; E42M65 2004 ; C811'.6 ; C2004-901058-1. What are these numbers? (These are something I found in a book and copied, they are not mine.) Are they necessary to add with the copyright info? Can I get away with not using them?

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Dear First Book

You must have been looking at the Cataloguing in Publication Data in a Canadian-published book to have found these numbers.

To answer your last question first: You can get away without using these numbers. You don't even need an ISBN to publish a book, you just need $ and something to be printed and bound.

Where Cataloguing in Publication (a.k.a. CIP) Data is useful, is in getting your book into library collections. Therefore, it is a marketing consideration. The CIP information is the information that a librarian would put on a card index for your book, but it is done in advance of publication and printed in the book. Thus making it easier for libraries everywhere to catalogue your book. The main elements of CIP Data are a standardized-for-cataloguing-purposes author name (to help uniquely identify that one author worldwide—even if there are multiple entities publishing with the same or similar author names; a proper library version of the book's title including series and edition info; subject categories—more so in nonfiction that poetry; Dewey Decimal (info) and/or Library of Congress numbers (for identifying author and subject & subsequently used to locate the book on its shelf in the library's holdings). The last number is the particular CIP Agency's control number for the CIP Data generated for your book.

For Canadian publishers, the following http://www.collectionscanada.ca/6/15/s15-1007-e.html is the current address of Library & Archives Canada's CIP Agency online CIP application form. Their toll-free support line is 1.866.578.7777. Follow the ghost in the machine through the voicemail maze to the CIP desk. Luc will help you.

To complete Library & Archives Canada's online CIP Application Form you are expected to have a mass of information and images or individual book page PDFs prepared in advance. It's impossible to complete the form (and online is the only option available) without advance prep of this info & PDFs. You need: publishing company name, address and contact person, publication title, subtitle, series, price, format, author's (illustrator, editors, photographer's) full name and full date of birth (year-month-day), book description, book ordering information, etc. PDFs wanted (to be linked to the form and uploaded) include Title page, Table of Contents, Introduction, Preface (foreword, afterword).

Congratulations on your forthcoming book!

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