Volume 1 covers core publishing industry information: book publishers; editorial services and agents; associations, events, courses and awards; and books and magazines for the trade. Volume 2 contains information on service providers and suppliers to the publishing industry. advertising, marketing and publicity; book manufacturing; sales and distribution; and services and suppliers can be found in this volume. Entries generally contain name, address, telephone and other telecommunications data, key personnel, company reportage, branch offices, brief statistics and descriptive annotations. Where applicable, Standard Address Numbers (SANs) have been included. SANs are unique numbers assigned to the addresses of publishers, wholesalers and booksellers. Publishers' entries also contain their assigned ISBN prefixes.

Includes, beginning Sept. 15, 1954 (and on the 15th of each month, Sept.-May) a special section: School library journal, ISSN 0000-0035, (called Junior libraries, 1954-May 1961). Also issued separately.