The writer or organisation (the agent) must be Australian, or must have a significant enough involvement in Australian literary activity to be identified as eligible. For AustLit purposes, there are four categories of 'Australian' agent:

Australian
Agents who are Australian-born, or who reside in Australia (and intend to remain in Australia and have substantial literary activity here). These agents include (when deemed relevant) those of Australian birth who spent their formative years here and whose creative writing was done after they left Australia, but whose works may have little or no Australian content. For example, Frederic Manning or P. L. Travers. Works by the latter agents may not be covered comprehensively.

Expatriate
Agents born or raised in Australia who no longer reside here, but who maintain a link to Australia. For example, Randolph Stow, Peter Porter or Clive James. Works by these agents may not be covered comprehensively.

Visitor
Significant short-term residents of Australia who have identified sufficiently with the country and its people to have written from an 'Australian' viewpoint. For example, D. H. Lawrence or Bruce Chatwin. Works by these agents may not be covered comprehensively.

Organisation
Organisations involved in the funding, production, distribution or support of Australian literature.

Other agents who do not fit precisely into one of the identified categories will be individually assessed for relevance in consultation with the Content Managers. Works of non-Australian creative agents who use Australia as a primary location for a work, but do not fit into the visitor category, will also be individually assessed in this way.

AustLit facilitates access to citations and, where possible, the full text of the following core resources:

• original creative Australian literature: fiction, drama, poetry, children's and young adult literature, and literary non-fiction. (In recognising the evolving nature of literary and cultural studies and AustLit's value to researchers within these areas, the inclusion policy for literary non-fiction was widened in 2002 to include more biographies, autobiographies, memoirs and critical material about this growing area in Australian publishing. Retrospective coverage will not be as comprehensive as contemporary and future publications.) Original creative literature is sourced from current and retrospective information sources, in print and/or electronic form, and includes translations, variant editions, revisions and reprints;
• specialist foci on significant subsets of Australian creative literature including multicultural writing, state based creative writers, specific genre and gender based research, etc.;
• critical material on Australian literary and dramatic works, creative writers, and on Australian literature in general;
• biographical material about relevant Australian writers and other significant figures in Australian literature;
• material about Australian literary organisations such as publishers, magazines, journals and newspapers, writers' groups and the Literature Fund of the Australia Council; information on publishing houses, distributors, literary agencies, concerning the development and cultural production of Australian literature or its distribution internationally;
• other information relating to Australian creative writers and their works (eg. awards, prizes and literature funding; manuscript information; publishing and distribution as it relates to the development of Australian literature, etc.).

The following resources are given minimal coverage or are generally not included in AustLit:

• non-fiction of a non-literary nature by Australian authors - works of an unambiguously political, historical, economic, sociological, practical or scientific nature; textbooks, guidebooks and information books; columns and feature articles in newspapers with social or personal comment or opinion which are primarily journalistic in nature and not distinguished as literary by editorial comment;
• non-Australian creative agents and works (these are only included when they directly relate to Australian creative agents and/or their works; non-Australian works are also restricted by the accessibility of the material within Australia);
• self-published titles;
• works which focus on the broader areas of Australian studies, culture and language.

AustLit includes material dating from European settlement in Australia (c.1780) to the present. Contemporary renditions of pre-1780 literary works will also be included when relevant.

AustLit includes information resources intended for the use of:

• academics and researchers in Australian literature, history and culture;
• students (tertiary and secondary);
• teachers of English and Australian literature;
• creators of Australian literature;
• the general public.

AustLit indexers and bibliographers gather information on material published in current and retrospective sources, including:

• printed monographs/books (single volume content, selected and collected works, anthologies);
• printed journals and newspapers;
• electronic sites, journals and texts;
• film/television/stage adaptations of Australian literary works, sound recordings of books, sound recordings/transcriptions of interviews with creative agents;
• manuscript collections.

A number of these sources are indexed comprehensively, while others are indexed selectively. From these sources, and from other research undertaken by AustLit staff, the following types of records are created:

Biographical records, including information relating to:

• names, eg. common writing names, alternative writing names (including pseudonyms), and other names by which the agent is or has been known;
• dates and places of birth and death;
• self-identified heritage details;
• a brief summary of each creative agent's life and literary activities (this information will be steadily built up over time, with specialist projects taking responsibility for particular subsets of creative agent identities);
• references to important secondary resources that supply greater detail on the life and works of the creative agent.

Organisational records, including information relating to:

• names, including name changes over time;
• dates and principal places of organisational activity;
• a brief summary of the organisation's place in and contribution to Australian literature (this information will be steadily built up over time);
• references to important secondary resources that supply greater detail on the history of the organisation.

Bibliographical records, containing content analysis of monograph and journal publications, including information relating to:

• full title(s), place of publication, publisher, year of publication, reprints, new editions, revisions;
• variant titles, introductions, prefaces, essays, significant annotations, illustrations, etc;
• subject indexing and setting information to a defined thesaurus;
• translations (from English to another language, as well as works created by Australian creative agents in a language other than English and translated into English);
• tables of content for many anthologies and selected and collected works.

AustLit aims to provide access to quality Internet based resources including electronic journals and texts. Sites by and about AustLit authors, Australian organisations and publisher sites that are relevant to Australian literary culture will be included.

While we do not vouch for the constancy or validity of the contents of indexed websites or e-publications, the resources chosen for recording on AustLit must meet the following requirements:

• must fall within the AustLit's specified inclusion criteria;
• must provide access to value-added information (ideally, access should be to primary information and not to lists of links);
• information contained in chosen resources should be, to the best of our knowledge, valid and accurate;
• information should be current or have retrospective validity;
• should allow links from other services;
• should follow accepted privacy and practice guidelines;
• should not breach copyright provisions;
• should not include any potentially defamatory material, inappropriate material or any other legally questionable content;
• it is preferable (although not essential) that items should be archived by Pandora, or should meet the Pandora guidelines for inclusion on their Archive (when relevant, suggestions for Pandora archiving will be made to the National Library of Australia).