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BIOGRAPHICAL SOURCES |
Online | General: Living
& Dead
Specialized:
Arts & Entertainment; Literature;
Music; History & Politcs; Science;
Ethnic & Geographically Oriented; Gay
and Lesbian; Sports; Religion
When you read about the people who are involved with a particular subject you can learn a good bit about the subject itself. Biographies have been popular since writing took the form of chiseling on clay tablets. Full length biographies continue in popularity and regularly fill best seller lists. The Ithaca College Library online catalog has more than 10,000 entries for biographies. Unfortunately, there is no BIOGRAPHY section in the Library. Instead, books written about people are cataloged in an appropriate subject section of the library. Here are some examples:
To locate a biography in the Ithaca College Library, search by the
name of the person, with last name first, as a
subject:
You can also search for biographies generically. Some subject headings will be very specific. Books about "Randolph, A. Philip" include Civil rights workers United States Biography and Labor unions United States Officials and employees Biography.
Using the word BIOGRAPHY in a subject search is not always helpful. Although Poets American 20th century Biography has more than a hundred entries, for biographical information about those American poets, other subheadings, including Correspondence, Diaries, Family Relations, and Interviews, may be just as useful. A very broad subject heading United States Biography includes a strange mix of biographical works including one on the Bush family, another about the kings of commerce, and a third on forgotten Americans, and yet another on candidates who were defeated for the Presidency. With those cautions, these are just few samples of the Subject Headings that will lead you to books in different aspects of this field:
| MAIN HEADINGS USED FOR COLLECTIONS OF BIOGRAPHIES & MEMOIRS, plus SUBJECTS RELATED TO THE STUDY OF BIOGRAPHY | BIOGRAPHY AS A SUBHEADING UNDER SUCH THINGS AS NAMES OF COUNTRIES, CLASSES OF PERSONS, ETHNIC GROUPS, ETC. |
The Ithaca College Library maintains many biographical resources in its Reference Collection. Biographical dictionaries are collective works of sketches of peoples' lives. In some sources, sketches are no more than a paragraph in length and include no more than a summary of facts, such as birthdate, names of spouse and children, education, awards, and career highlights. Others may devote multiple pages to a single persons life. Biographical dictionaries, however, aren't the only sources for locating information about people. In addition to biographical dictionaries, other reference works, such as encyclopedias, often include biographical essays. The Ithaca College Library, for example, does not have a biographical dictionary of American psychologists, but Encyclopedia of Psychology, published by the American Psychological Association in 2000, has lengthy articles on Carl Rogers, B.F. Skinner, Anna Freud, Alfred Adler and dozens of other prominent people in the field of behavorial science. One of the best sources for short biographical information about notorious outlaws and criminals, as well as crime fighters, is the six volume Encyclopedia of World Crime (Ref HV6017 .N377 1989). It is well illustrated, so in addition to learning about his exploits, you can see what the Sundance Kid really looked like. Directories may be useful in locating people, but they usually include no more than contact information with, perhaps, brief identification. A directory of sports history researchers, for example, may indicate a person's field of interest, college or organizationand affliation, and a telephone number and address.
Many of the biographical resources that the Ithaca College Library makes available are not found in paper. The libray subscribes to several online biographical reference tools. For a current list, see the Biographical Resources page. In addition, through ebrary, several other biographical dictionaries are available online. Those individual titles will be listed in the subject categories below.
Subscription sources are hardly the only biographical resources available online. Many people have created online biographical centers on the Web that are freely available. These resources have been created for a variety of purposes. Dead or alive?, for example, has the unique purpose of helping users confirm life status of about 7000 famous people. The Invention Dimension's Inventor of the Week Archive profiles more obscure people with multi-paragraph length biographical sketchs that focus on the inventors' achievements and impact on society. Some, like the last one from MIT, have the backing of colleges or universities or professional societies and are as reliable as the resources the library subscribes to, but many others have been poorly researched, hastily assembled, irregularly updated, or even plagarized. For that reason, it is all the more important to think critically about the material you might find through Google and evaluate its validity, objectivity, and reliability before you use it in your own research.
In addition to the popular internet search engines, several resources can help you locate biographical resources on the web. The Librarians Index to the Internet lists more than a thousand biographical sources in its People section. The Internet Public Library is more selective in this Biography section, but it still includes well over a hundred among its main page and six sub-heading pages. One of the most popular free online reference sources is Wikipedia, and indeed it includes thousands of biographical sketches of people famous, infamous, and obscure. Although it can be a valuable research tool providing accurate information, because it is a community-based resources that allows anyone to write or edit articles, and not always for legitimate reasons, its accuracy and objectivity need always to be questioned.
Current Biography. 1940-
A standard source for researching newsmakers, noisemakers, and other prominent
persons in fields of entertainment, government, business, and science. A new
issue comes out each month with more than a dozen articles of three or four
pages plus a photograph for each person featured. Shorter length obituaries
are also included. At the end of the year a bound annual volume is published.
Ref CT100 .C8
Who's Who of American Women. 1958-
A biographical dictionary that recognizes living American women.
Initiated to recognize women whose achievements have been neglected
by other sources.
Ref CT 3260 W5
Encyclopedia of World Biography. 2d Edition. 1998.
A 17 volume work that presents brief biographical sketches which provide vital
statistics as well as information on the importance of the person listed.
Ref CT 103 .E56 1997
The International Who’s Who. 1999-2004.
Pencil sketches of people from around the world in many disciplines. From Europa.
Ref CT 120 .I5
Dictionary of American Biography.
Provides lengthy, authoritative articles concerning famous deceased Americans.
First published in the 1930's, updated with supplements, with coverage extending
through the mid-1970's.
Ref E 176 D56
American National Biography.
Portraits of more than 17,400 men and women -- from all eras and walks of life
-- whose lives have shaped the nation. Published online by Oxford University
Press under the auspices of the American Council of Learned Societies.
Electronic
resource
Scribner encyclopedia of American lives. 1998-
Continues the Dictionary of American biography.
Ref CT 213 .S37
Who Was Who in America. Annual.
Very brief summaries.
Ref E 176 .W64
Dictionary of National Biography. 1882-
A standard source for historical British biographical information. Originally
written during the last century, it is updated with supplements.
Ref DA 28 D47
Almanac of Famous People. 1998.
A reference guide to more than 30,000 famous and infamous newsmakers from Biblical
times to the present.
Ref CT 104 .A46 1998
Notable American Women, 1607-1950. 1971.
A three volume set with short articles about women in all disciplines.
Ref CT3260 .N57
Notable American Women, The Modern Period. 1984.
A single volume continuation.
Ref CT3260 .N571
Reference Library of American Women. 1999.
A four volume set, with the fourth volume for notable international women.
Ref CT3260 .R44 1999