The Cumulative Book Index aims to be a record of English language books published throughout the world. It lists both hardback and paperback fiction and nonfiction books of 50 or more pages. There is no page limit for bibliographies, plays, juvenile literature, and scholarly works. Books in foreign languages are not indexed, but dictionaries, grammars, phrase-books, readers, editions of foreign classics, and other language learning aids are included if they contain some English. Government documents and periodicals are not included.
Entries provide subject heading for books.
Other information included is publisher, distributor, and book price in local currency. This index is not a catalog of in-print books, but an historical record of what has been published in English. The paper index is located in King Library in folios Z 1219.M779 and Z 1219.M78.