What is P-CIP?
P-CIP – The Basics CIP is not unlike the nutritional guidelines on a package of breakfast cereal. Basically, it is a block of information that contains the technical specifications; including ISBN, LC subject headings, Dewey and LC classification numbers, etc.; prepared by professional catalogers (just as every doctor is not a pathologist, every librarian is not a cataloger). The information follows a very specific set of guidelines and conventions, for use by reference librarians and the library’s technical services staff. Click on the following image to see a sample MARC record provided by QBI. Subject Classifications Obviously, publishers and authors would like to specify the subject categories for their work. But, while “Pop Psychology”, for example, may be an excellent subject category for promotional literature or even the back cover of your book, THERE IS NOT SUCH SUBJECT CLASSIFICATION in the Library of Congress lexicon.
