A collection of extracts from the works of various authors, selected by an editor and sometimes limited to a specific literary form or genre such as short stories, poems, or plays, or to a specific subject or time period. The works included are listed in the table of contents at the beginning of a collected work. Compare with compilation. An organized collection of the noncurrent records of an institution, government, organization, or corporate body, or the personal papers of an individual, family, or group, preserved in a repository for their historical value. A self-contained prose composition, usually entirely nonfiction, written on a specific topic or subject by one or more authors and published under a separate title in a collected work, or in periodical containing other works of the same form.
Some books have two or more joint authors.
In most library catalogs, the term author is used in its broadest sense to include joint author, editor, playwright, director, composer, performer, artist, creator, etc. Any issue of a periodical that precedes the current issue. The back issues of a periodical are usually organized in a back file. Synonymous with back number. A list of sources cited or references for further reading, printed at the end of an article or may be published separately in book form.