Biographical Information - Individuals
Biographies organized by COUNTRY/NATIONALITY (must be dead to be included):
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American national biography onlineCovers more than 18 000 individuals who fit all the following criteria: American (lived within what is now the United States), deceased (with enough time having passed since the individual's death to allow for critical evaluation), influenced American history or culture broadly (not just a locally influential individual), sufficient research materials exist on this individual to create a solid biographical essay. Essays are written by scholars and include a bibliography (including an indication of where a person's archives are located), links to reliable online resources, and links to cross-referenced individuals. Additionally, there are links to thematically related essays from the "Oxford Companion to United States History" to help place the individual in the larger trends and issues of his time. Drawing again on the "Oxford Companion to United States History " there are links to articles in 12 broad research topics to help focus a paper or research on an individual or an era. ANB may be searched by name, by keyword (any occurrence of it), or click on the "Search" tab to conduct an advanced search by gender, profession, birthplace, and other features. Oxford UP.
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Australian dictionary of biographyPresents biographical articles on over 10 000 individuals important to the history of Australia, most of whom died before 1980. The online edition currently contains no more biographies than the print edition does, and the older entries have not been updated to show recent historical developments. However, the online edition allows for searching by keyword, gender, cultural heritage, birth/death dates, occupation, or religious influence. Biographies are between 500 and 2000 words in length, written by scholars and contain a bibliography of secondary resources on the individual. Australian National University.
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Oxford dictionary of national biographyProvides authoritative biographies of deceased individuals who influenced British history, including colonial British-Americans. Biographies include a listing of major works written by the individual (if any) and a reference list of full-length biographies and critical articles. Each biography also includes a "Reputation" section which describes the individual's standing in his or her time period and how that has changed since then. Very helpfully will indicate where the individual's archives are, if they exist. Also provides links to major themed articles (on the American Founding Fathers, for instance), entries to related individuals, and to other online resources produced by Oxford University Press (which we may or may not have access to). Oxford University Press.
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Dictionary of Irish biographyCovers Irish men and women from the earliest times until 2001, providing biographies and a sense of their influence on Irish history, culture, and life. Simple keyword search from the homepage may be used or use the advanced search feature to search by occupation (including "saint"), date of birth or death, place of birth or death (by Irish counties), or religion. Biographies range from a few paragraphs to longer essays which will assess the individual's influence. Includes fictional characters, like Molly Malone, who have become immortalized in song, and some of the figures from Irish mythology who have become familiar through literature (Deirdre). Brief bibliography of further reading provided. Cambridge UP.
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World biographical information systemBrief biographies of individuals from various international sources.
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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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African Biography on the InternetA list of links to web pages on or about Africans of the 20th and 21st centuries, most biographies are of authors. Provided by Columbia University Libraries' Global Studies division.
Biographies organzied by CAREER or PROFESSION:
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Dictionary of literary biographyPresents systematically, career biographies and criticisms of writers from all eras and all genres through volumes dedicated to specific types of literature and time periods. Contains articles on literary authors from throughout the world.
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Oxford art onlineServes as a portal to several important art related resources: Grove Art, Oxford Companion to Western Art, Encyclopedia of Aesthetics, and Concise Oxford Dictionary of Art Terms. Search by terms biographies, subject entries, or images. Includes 23 000 subject entries, 21 000 biographies, 500 000 bibliographic citations, 40 000 image links, and 5 500 images contained within Grove Art Online. Oxford University Press.
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Oxford music onlineThe most comprehensive reference work for music in English, with continually updated content. Searches Grove Music Online initially; on search results pages, provides links to more results from The Oxford Dictionary of Music and The Oxford Companion to Music. Oxford University Press.
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20th century American poetryProvides full text of thousands of American poems from 1900 to present. Searchable by poet, by first line or title, and by keyword(s)in poems. Complete bibliographical information is provided for each poem. Biographical information is also given for each author.
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20th century English poetryProvides full text of thousands of British poems from 1900 to present day. Includes works in English by poets from outside the British Isles, as well as significant translations of non-English poetry. Searchable by poet, by first line or title, and by keyword(s) in poems. Complete bibliographical information is provided for each poem. Biographical information is also given for each author.
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Orlando : women's writing in the British Isles from the beginnings to the presentOrlando: Women's Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present includes biographical and writing career entries on British women writers, selected non-British or international women writers, and selected British and international men. Also includes dated items representing events and processes (in the accounts of these writers, but also in the areas of history, science, medicine, economics, the law, and other contexts). Entries include information on the author’s writing, including Author Summary, Intertextuality and Influence, Reception, Responses (literary), Textual Features, Literary Setting, Theme or Topic (treated in text), Textual Production. Sections on the author include: Life, Cultural Formation, Family and Intimate Relationships, Occupation. Cambridge.
Biographies of LIVING Individuals (including those who may now be dead):
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Current biography illustratedProvides short biographies of persons currently in the news and about whom no full-length biography exists as of the date of publication in Current Biography. Includes references to current (or then-current) news sources on the individual. Entries date back to 1940 but this is often the only reliable source for biography for current, living individuals. Broad coverage of people in media, politics, and all professions and arts are included.
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Gale In Context: BiographyIndexes and provides full-text access to a variety of news and reference sources containing the biographies of individuals from all time periods. Front page provides basic search box, a listing of selected biographies arranged by occupation, and links to current biographical news (obituaries, etc.). Searching by occupation, individual name, place of birth/death, nationality, and other advanced search features is available. Individual entries include a general overview of a person's life and links to reference and news sources (divided into "scholarly" and "magazines"), as well as audio or image resources (audio from NPR). Advanced search includes a "lexile index" search which allows teachers to choose materials at an appropriate reading level for their students. Also useful is the "Listen" button which will read the entry aloud (including word or sentence highlighting if desired). Gale Cengage.
Obituaries
A good obituary is a great source of information. You can use the two or three sources listed below, or Google your person's name followed by obituary.
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ProQuest historical newspapers. Black newspapers collectionSearch the full-text of nine major African American newspapers - Chicago Defender, The Baltimore Afro-American, New York Amsterdam News, Pittsburgh Courier, Los Angeles Sentinel, Atlanta Daily World, The Norfolk Journal and Guide, The Philadelphia Tribune, and Cleveland Call and Post. Dates available vary for each newspaper based on their individual histories but collectively cover from 1893 - 2005. Track local, regional, national, and international events, arts, history, military issues, civil rights, social news, popular culture and more. Search by keyword (including personal names and titles of works or groups and movements), words in title or full-text. Limit search by dates of publication, article type (including ads), and specific newspaper within the collection. Primary Source. ProQuest.
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ProQuest historical newspapers. The New York timesProvides searching and digital access to the New York Times newspaper from its beginnings in 1851 to three years short of the current year. Basic and advanced searching features, limiters include date and document type (articles, birth notices, obituaries, display ads, real estate, etc.). Primary Source. ProQuest.;This database offers full-page-images and article images from the New York Times dating back to 1851 (called New York daily times, 1851-1857). Digital reproductions of every page from every issue, cover to cover, in downloadable PDF files. It provides genealogists, researchers and scholars with online, easily-searchable first-hand accounts and coverage of the politics, society and events of the time.
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Times digital archive 1785-1985Provides indexing and full-text access to the Times (London) newspaper from its inception to 1985. Search by keyword with limits available by newspaper section (stock tables, editorials, articles, illustrations/pictures, etc.). Primary Source. Gale Cengage.
"Biographical" Information - Organizations
Grass Roots Movements & Groups
Black Lives Matter
Greenpeace
PETA
#MeToo
These groups and movements can all be researched, but the more recently they have occurred the more widely you will want to search. I'll demo how to research both the Black Lives Matter movement and the #MeToo campaign/movement to demonstrate how to search for "biographies of these types of groups.
Businesses, Organizations, Non-Profits
These groups often have to be legitimized in some way and because of this are easier to search. They can be searched in online catalogues as you would search for people, by their name. You can add history to the search to see if there are focused works on these groups: American Red Cross history, for example.
You can also try searching in business databases for information on them. I've listed two below that might help.
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Business source completeProvides access to full-text business journals and hundreds of scholarly, peer-reviewed journals covering all aspects of business, marketing, management, economics, finance, accounting, international business and more. Additional full-text, non-journal content includes financial data, books, monographs, major reference works, book digests, conference proceedings, case studies, investment research reports, industry reports, market research reports, country reports, company profiles, SWOT analyses, and more. May be searched individually or in combination with other EBSCO databases. EBSCOhost.
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ProQuest One BusinessDesigned to help business researchers balance theoretical and practical learning and acquire the research skills that will make them successful in their courses and careers, ProQuest One Business is a complete business library containing millions of full-text items across scholarly and popular periodicals, newspapers, market research reports, dissertations, books, videos and more. This resource combines multiple business information databases which are within the ProQuest ABI/Inform Collection such as Accounting, Tax & Banking Collection, Asian & European Business Collection, Entrepreneurship Database, and J.P. Morgan Research. Replaces ABI/INFORM..
Book-length Biographies
To search for book-length, scholarly biographies about a person:
- 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.
People
