ProQuest has announced that it has become a partner in the Library of Congress' Electronic Cataloging in Publication (ECIP) Cataloging Partnership and BIBCO Programs. The company is the first publisher ever to partner in the ECIP program and joins academic libraries in cataloguing pre-publication galleys of U.S. imprints received at the Library of Congress. The Library of Congress selects candidates for these programs that have demonstrated expertise in and commitment to cooperative cataloguing.
ECIP and BIBCO partners create high quality catalogue records for digital products and monographs in advance of publication as a service to American libraries. ProQuest's role will be to prepare pre-publication metadata that conforms to the highest standards of the Library of Congress for at least one major publisher and may add additional publishers in the future.
ProQuest has been a longstanding collaborator with the Library of Congress with a unique public/private partnership. ProQuest assigns one of its employees to the Library's U.S. ISSN Center to perform work for the benefit of both organisations. The work that ProQuest donates has assisted the Library in keeping up with new ISSN assignments and moving forward on innovative projects and activities. ProQuest is also the official off-site repository for the Library of Congress' collection of American dissertations.
