Book Publication Data Page?

Question

In an English-language book, we conventionally have, among the first few pages, a page displaying essential data concerning the book: Library of Congress Cataloguing Data, various credits, publication date/location, copyright and other legal information, etc.What is this page called? Do we have a specific term for it?EDIT: in my research, I found this described as *metadata*. Would it be appropriate to call it the *metadata page*?

Answer 1

Metadata more commonly refers to information embedded in a Web page that is not displayed directly on the page but which can be read by other computers. This meta data may include author's name, various tags to catalog the page in search engines etc.

The term I have heard used for the page or pages at the front of a physical book where you find the Library of Congress number, Authors, publication date, publisher etc. is "front matter." There may be a more specific name for this page but "front matter" is how I have heard it referred to. The front matter of course contains more than the specific page you refer to but it includes any pages in the front of the book before "page 1" of the actual text. Front matter could contain an introduction, a preface, author's dedication etc. It will also include the page you refer to which contains the technical publication information.

Someone more familiar with book publishing probably can provide a specific name for the page you reference if one exists.

Regards