An edited volume or edited collection is a collection of scholarly or scientific chapters written by different authors. The chapters in an edited volume are original works (not republished works).
Alternative terms for edited volume are contributed volume, edited collection and multiauthor volume. All these terms emphasize that the book is a collection of chapters contributed by different authors and harmonized by an editor. Edited volumes are of interest in academic publishing because they present different viewpoints and experiences on a common theme.
An edited volume is unlike an anthology, which is a collection of republished short literary works by different authors. It is also not a collected edition, which brings together already-published works by a single author and is edited by a publisher. It is different from a reader, which contains collected texts for learning purposes. Finally, it is different from proceedings, which contain articles written by different authors who present them at a scientific conference.