How do you format "cataloging in publication" data? Is there a standard?

December 14, 2004 8:21 AM

Typesetting. I'm typesetting a children's book that'll be available to libraries. One of the components to the book is the "cataloging in publication" data (the frontmatter with the Dewey classification for the book and other pertinent info). Right now, the CIP data isn't much to look at. I'd like to make it a bit more attractive, while not modifying the content. Have any of you (librarians? publishers?) had any experience with this? I've looked for some sort of formatting standard, but I can't find anything that spells it out.
posted by Alt F4 to media & arts (3 comments total)

I've seen people do this in a few interesting ways... I've seen it printed out as if it were a library card in an old card catalog, so sort of enclosed in a box with a major heading but then all the other stuff below it in typewriter-y fonts. I've also seen kids' books that have done with this in a handwriting font that made something that is otherwise pretty bland and otherwise ignored look more approachable and interesting. Otherwise, I'm pretty curious about this question as well, since CIP data areas are a pretty visually non-interesting part of most books.
posted by jessamyn at 8:33 AM on December 14, 2004

The CIP information--supplied to you by the Library of Congress--is to be kept exactly the way they send it to you, in the arrangement they provide. When I typeset books, the only modification I make to the LoC's CIP data is to use em- and en-dashes instead of double hyphens and tabs instead of spaces for indents.

I think as long as the information retains the capital and lowercase characters, indentations, spaces, and line breaks as supplied by the LoC, you're free to use whatever typeface you wish. I'll look through my email archive and see if I can find what the LoC sent me because I know they specifically addressed this issue.
posted by fandango_matt at 10:10 AM on December 14, 2004

As a former cataloguer, I've seen CIP information in lots of different fonts. Really interesting choices always made me smile.
posted by Sidhedevil at 10:44 AM on December 14, 2004