Book-length Biographies
To search for book-length, scholarly biographies about a person, first go to BearCat and select the General Subjects (LCSH) box (this will search for works about your person and leave out works he or she has written). Enter their name in the "Last name, first name" format and click the Search button (or hit the Enter key on the keyboard). If you get no results, first make sure you have correctly spelled the person's name (especially names of individuals from ancient Greece or Rome, saints, kings and queens and rulers, or foreign names that may involve a double last name). If you still find nothing, try WorldCat - which will search libraries across the United States. We can borrow books from these libraries for you. You may use the
button or the link Request via Interlibrary Loan to order the book. Books will take about 7 - 10 days to arrive.
National Biographies
National biographies are excellent places to look for deceased individuals. You will get a thorough but concise (compared to book-length) biography, analysis of major works or inventions, discussion of influences (on and by), and an excellent bibliography of primary and secondary sources on the individual. Almost every nation has a national biography; only the major ones are listed below.
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American National Biography (online)Biographical dictionary of about 17,500 notable American men and women from all eras of American history who are no longer alive. Includes illustrations and hypertext links to other web resources. Remember, also, that many women and minorities would not have been "notable" enough in their time to have records ANB can draw on.
PRINT VERSION: American National Biography, 24 vols. - JONES REF. - CT213 .A68 1999
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Australian dictionary of biography This link opens in a new windowAustralia's pre-eminent dictionary of national biography. Over 10,000 scholarly biographies of individuals who died before 1980; updated frequently. Attempts to include representatives of every social group and sphere of endeavour.
PRINT VERSION: Australian Dictionary of Biography, 16+ vols. - JONES REF - DU82 .A9
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Dictionary of Canadian Biography (Online)In English and French, this work includes Canadians who died between 1000 CE and 1930 CE.
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Oxford Dictionary of National Biography"the first point of reference for anyone interested in the lives of the peoples of the British Isles and their connections overseas, from the earliest times to the end of the year 2000."
PRINT VERSION: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, 60+ vols. - JONES REF - DA28 .O95 2004
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World biographical information system This link opens in a new windowIndex only to biographies of over 6 million people from over 57l biographical sources. Compiles biographical articles from printed reference works published from the 16th to the 21th century. Full text of all biographies available in microform in the Jones Library.
Authoritative Online Biography Sources
The Baylor Libraries has online access to two major biographical sources by nation/country which might prove useful to your research for this class: American National Biography (ANB) and Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (ONDB). Both provide concise, scholarly biographies of deceased individuals of American and British nationalities (and for the colonial period in many countries, the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography will include individuals from current or former Commonwealth or colonial countries).
Other useful features of both include a bibliography of selected major book sources on the person, information on where personal papers and archives for an individual are housed, and selected scholarly studies of the person.
Click on the boxes below to go to the resource you need. If you are in the Moody-Jones Libraries you will find the print edition of each of these resources in Jones Reference. The call number for ANB is CT213.A68 1999 and ODNB is at DA28 .O95 2004.
The box below is a link to a selected overview articles from The Oxford Companion to United States History as well biographies of key individuals in women's history from the American National Biography. A good place to start your research if you are researching women in U.S. history.
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Search Oxford DNB |
