AustLit has implemented the International Federation for Library Associations and Institutions' Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records (FRBR) model to describe literary and creative works.

Rather than treating each publication as a separate entity (as does standard library cataloguing), the FRBR model represents the publication history of works by incorporating the following four concepts into a single record:

• the Work: an abstract concept (eg. the novel Voss by Patrick White)
  AustLit records use the term Work to represent the Work concept
• the Expression: how that Work is realised (e.g. White's original version of the novel in English or the German translation by John Stickforth of the novel Voss by Patrick White)
  AustLit records use the term Version to represent the Expression concept
• the Manifestation: how that Expression is made concrete (e.g. the 1958 Kiepenheuer & Witsch publication of Stickforth's translation of the novel Voss by Patrick White)
  AustLit records use the term Publication to represent the Manifestation concept
• the Item: the individual item on the Library shelf (e.g. the copy of the 1958 Kiepenheuer & Witsch publication of the John Stickworth translation of the novel Voss by Patrick White, held by a particular library)

AustLit does not directly record Items. Users can discover the location of particular items through AustLit's Holdings link with The National Bibliographic Database via Kinetica.

The relationships between these concepts can be 'one-to-one', or 'one-to-many':

• Works can be expressed in one or many versions
• Expressions can be published/manifested one or many times
• Manifestations/Publications can result in one or many items

AustLit augments the FRBR model with 'event modeling' (based on work undertaken by the ABC Harmony and INDECS groups):

• Works have a Creation event
• Expressions have a Realisation event
• Manifestations have a Manifestation event

Works, Expressions and Manifestations all have attributes, and Creation, Realisation and Manifestation events all have attributes. Works, for example, can have subject attributes - they can be about things - and work creation events can have creators and places and dates of creation as attributes.

Works can also have relationships: they can be the subjects of works, or be influences on other works or writers.

AustLit treats all people (including authors) and all organisations as Agents. Like Works, Expressions and Manifestations, Agents can have attributes:

• Names, including alternative writing names
• Gender
• Nationality
• Cultural heritage
• Personal awards

and be involved in events, which themselves have attributes:

• Birth and death events (with date and place attributes)
• Creation, realisation and manifestation events (with all the attributes which Works, Expressions and Manifestations can 'own')

Agents can also have relationships: they can be the subjects of works, or be influences on other writers or works.