Reference Sources for Biography

When searching for biographical information, the reference collection is an important place begin your search since it contains a number of resources: encyclopedias, yearbooks, or subject specific works. Below is just a sample of the biographical sources found in our reference collection.

American Men and Women of Science                                                        R 925 A512

Biographical information on important contributors to varying scientific fields, organized by year.

 

Biography Index                                                                                           R 016.92 B615

Indexes biographical materials found in books and magazines. (This index is located on the ground level)

 

Contemporary Authors                                                                                 R 928.1 C761

Information on current writers in journalism, fiction, screenwriting, and other fields.

 

Current Biography Yearbook                                                                       R 920 C976

Biographies of contemporary individuals prominent in the news: including the areas of popular culture, sports, national/international affairs and science/technology.

 

Dictionary of American Biography                                                             R 920 D554

Covers US citizens and those who have lived in the US and made significant contributions. Only people who are deceased are included. Most recent volume is 1996.

 

History of World Leaders                                                                              R 920.02 H673 1994

Biographical information for world leaders, organized by geographical area (e.g. Europe).

 

Oxford Dictionary of National Biography                                                      R 920.041 O98 2004

Scope is similar to that of the Dictionary of American Biography only it concerns itself with the British Isles and its former colonies.

 

Women in World History                                                                              R 920.72 W892i 1999

Over 10,000 articles with varying lengths, covering women (living and death) from a number of different nationalities and time periods.

 

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Finding Books and Other Items in the Library

To find biographical information in our general collection start by going to the ALEX online catalog and searching by subject. The subject term would be the name of the specific individual for which you are searching. (Remember to invert the name).  Search by author if you want to find works by a specific person. 

 

Note: biographical information is spread throughout the collection (e.g. information on Tolkien is in the 800s, information on Freud is in the 150s)

 

Browse by call number: 

·         920s- biography, genealogy and insignia

 

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Resources for Finding Articles with Biographical information

To find additional biographical information for magazines and scholarly journals, use our online library databases. Academic Search Complete is an example of a general database that contain information from multiple disciplines. The following databases are other examples, typically more specific in nature, that contain information geared towards this subject area.

African American Studies Center

Provided by Oxford, this source is specifically geared towards the field of African American Studies and offers brief biographies for important individuals in African American history.

 

Biography and Genealogy Master Index

Index of biographical information from a variety of sources.

 

Dow Jones Factiva

Covers newspapers and journal articles, focusing by not limited to the business subject area.

 

Literature Resource Center

Excellent source for biographical information on writers, past and present.

 

New York Times [1851-2003]

Full text articles from the New York Times during this time period.

 

Newsbank

Covers regional and national newspapers.

 

Newspaper Source Plus

Covers 131 national and international newspapers.

 

 

Journal Finder

If you are having trouble finding the full text of a journal, Journal Finder can help point you towards the right database.  

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Web Resources for Biographical information

There is a great variety of web sites that provide biographical information. Following are a few websites that could be useful to your research. For additional web resources check out the library's delicious page of websites.

Biography.com

Official site of the Biography channel, offers entries of a variety of lengths, some include AV materials.

 

Gale Free Resources

Collection of free resources (including biographies) honoring Black History month

 

Infoplease- Almanac: Biography

Provides brief biographical information on people from a variety of disciplines and subject areas.

 

Internet Public library- Biography

Page from the Internet Public Library that lists and annotates resources for biographical information online.

 

Library Spot: biographies

Organizes and annotates a number of outside websites providing biographical information

 

Nobel Prize

This site contains biographical information on all the Nobel Prize winners