The Work Type attribute is assigned to all AustLit work records, and can be assigned more than once e.g. Reference and Website.

A collection of items (eg. verse, critical articles, dramas) with varied authorship. Also used for back-to-back items (eg. novels, selected works) published by more than one author in the same physical format.

A collection of individual works that form a series by a single author. Usually conceived of as a series by the author, but can become a series after publication. John Marsden's Tomorrow Series is an example of author definition, while Martin Boyd's The Langton Quartet was defined as a series after all four works were published.

The total output of published works by one author, or the total output of an author within a particular genre. For example, - The End of Childhood: The Complete Stories of Henry Handel Richardson represents all of Richardson's short stories, but does not include her novels. A rarely used work type, it is only be assigned posthumously. This work type is not assigned for works titled Collected works while the author is still living; in such cases, 'Selected Works' is used.

Used only for describing physical or electronic collections of works that may be in disparate forms. The two major examples are: collections of manuscripts, personal or organisational papers or documents (eg. Papers of A. D. Hope, the Campbell Howard Collection); OR, websites gathering together documents and creative pieces stored and made available in electronic form (eg. the online exhibition Southall from A-Z: Ash Road to Ziggurat).

An excerpt from a larger work, published either prior to or after the publication of the full work. The Work Form 'Extract' is used when creating a record for a 'container' work type such as an anthology or selected work that may contain one or more forms such as poetry, extract, short story.

A book (or thesis) that has such diversity in the subjects of the individual chapters that each warrants its own work record.

A publication issued in several parts bearing numeric or chronological designations and intended to be continued indefinitely. AustLit classes as newspapers those publications that have certain format specifications such as tabloids, broadsheets eg. The Sunday Mail, The Australian, The Courier-Mail.

An issue of a newspaper.

'A publication issued in several parts bearing numeric or chronological designations and intended to be continued indefinitely.' AustLit classes as periodicals non-newspaper academic, literary or current affairs journals and magazines published at regularly recurring intervals in print and/or electronic formats.

An issue of a periodical.

A collection of individual works that are published under a particular series name which is created by a publisher, such as the UQP Black Australian Writers series or the Current Theatre Series by Currency Press.

General literary reference works such as dictionaries of literary terms, encyclopedias, 'companions' etc. For example The Oxford Companion to Australian Film.

A work that contains multiple single works all by the same author, but does not contain everything that the author is likely to have written. A collection of works by a living author is assigned a 'Selected Work' work type. The individual works within a 'Selected Work' may have been published separately prior to their appearance in the collection.

A series of individual works that are clearly linked by a continuous narrative or a connected theme. Most sequences are in verse form, but they may appear in other forms such as short stories or essays.

Works published in parts (eg. serialised novels or short stories), usually in newspapers or periodicals.

A single piece of work (eg. a single poem, short story, novel, critical work). A 'Single Work' can also be a verse novel, or a book of poetry that is an epic poem.

A 'parent' term used to draw together all related works (eg. Voss the novel and Voss the opera). Used rarely

An internet site.