Taking the Library of Congress CIP Program into the Future with PrePub Book Link

The Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication (CIP) Program and its sister program the Preassigned Control Number (PCN) Program have provided prepublication metadata to publishers since 1971. For the first three decades, CIP publishers submitted paper applications, and CIP staff manually keyed the information into the Library of Congress’s local cataloging system. Between 1999 and 2003, the Library developed an in-house online CIP and PCN system with separate backend modules, the EPCN Traffic Manager and the ECIP Traffic Manager. In 2017 the Library let a contract to completely overhaul the aging online system and replace it with a custom application on a ServiceNow platform. The intensive design and development phase, followed by the controlled chaos surrounding implementation, resulted in a stable, functional, and state-of-the-art application named PrePub Book Link (PPBL). PPBL brought both the CIP and PCN programs into the future with an overall improved user experience, increased security, advanced account management, dynamic Web forms, enhanced ONIX integration and workflows, and features such as the MARC Editor and the customizable CIP data block generator. As the CIP Program prepares for the next 50 years, continued development of PPBL will enable the CIP and PCN programs to thrive.