To be included in this collection the publication must meet the Higher Education Research Data Collection (HERDC) definition of research and:

• be a major work of scholarship
• be offered for sale as bound hard copies, packaged CD-ROMs or subscription/fee based e-books
• have an International Standard Book Number (ISBN)
• be written entirely by a single author, or by joint authors who share responsibility for the whole book
• have been published by a commercial publisher

The types of books that may meet the criteria include:

• critical scholarly texts (e.g. music, medieval or classical texts)
• new interpretations of historical events
• new ideas or perspectives based on established research findings

The types of books that are unlikely to meet the criteria include:

• textbooks
• anthologies
• edited books
• creative works such as novels
• translations
• revisions or new editions