The Internet has affected many of the ways in which the Library does business. The Cataloging in Publication Division, for example, which provides publishers with cataloging data that are seen by millions of people, has recently cataloged its 1,000th title - The Emerald Flame by Patricia Hickman - electronically.
The ECIP project enables publishers to transmit via the Internet texts of forthcoming publications to the Library, where they are cataloged in an electronic environment. It also enables Library staff to e-mail the completed CIP data to the publisher, improving timeliness.
Electronic CIP originated with a February 1993 memo from John Celli, chief of the Cataloging in Publication Division, to Sarah Thomas, then director for cataloging, recommending a pilot project in which a small group of publishers would submit applications for CIP data electronically. Publishers participating in the conventional CIP program submit their applications and accompanying galleys by mail. This can discourage publishers from submitting full galleys, because their weight often requires significant postage.
But if the publisher does not submit the full text, the cataloger may be unable to determine the book's full range of subjects.
Before the pilot began, questions were raised: Are publishers ready for ECIP? Do they have access to the Internet? Are the texts of their forthcoming books in machine-readable form? To explore these issues, the CIP Division designed a one- page survey and in April 1995 sent it to 3,878 publishers; 512 reponded, and their overall response was positive. Fifty-five percent of respondents said they had access to the Internet and 77 percent said they would have access by 1997. Seventy-two percent said their texts were in machine- readable form. Thirty-eight percent said they could submit texts electronically now and 67 percent would be able to submit texts electronically within three to four years.
An ECIP Group was formed to design the pilot. The group agreed that it would also develop a parallel system to support the Preassigned Card Number (PCN) program. The PCN program provides only a Library of Congress card number. During the early years of the program the card numbers were assigned to enable libraries to order catalog card sets from the Library's Cataloging Distribution Service and private sector vendors. Today the numbers are also used to facilitate book searching for libraries and book vendors who use automated systems. Publishers frequently obtain a PCN instead of CIP data because it can be assigned quickly. It also requires the publisher to submit only a single page application form.
The CIP program processes about 50,000 titles a year. While all publishers may not chose to participate in ECIP and some publications such as reprints cannot, by virtue of their paper format, be submitted via the ECIP program, the CIP Division expects that the majority of applications will be submitted electronically within the next two to three years. This means that hundreds of applications will be received daily and that several hundred applications will be in the pipeline at any given time. The electronic system will make it easier for team leaders at the Library to route applications to the appropriate cataloging teams. It will also enable staff to identify the status of any application at any time.
Responses from publishers participating in the ECIP experiment have been positive. The University of Texas Press notes that ECIP is faster than conventional CIP and eliminates "the need to photocopy a stack of documents for each submission (author form, front matter, sample chapter)." Utah State University Press says, "It's easier, tons faster and saves trees." And Chatham House Publishers says, "The ECIP program has been great. It represents a saving in photocopying, postage, and especially time."
The CIP Division expects to have all of the modules of the ECIP system developed this fall.