Biographies

Biographical Dictionaries

Biographical dictionaries are specialized biographical reference works. Geographical coverage tends to be limited, and quality and length of articles vary from title to title. Online biographical dictionaries include full-text searching and hyper-linked cross-references.

Online Biographical Dictionaries

American National Biography Online

Short biographies of close to 19,000 people who have influenced and shaped American history and culture. Each entry includes a bibliography which identifies biographies, published primary sources and archival holdings of personal papers.

Oxford Dictionary of National Biography Online

Close to 60,000 signed biographies of the men and women who shaped all aspects of the British past, from the earliest times to the end of the year 2000. Each biography includes a list of published and archival sources.

Biography Reference Center (EBSCO)

Includes full-text profiles of persons, living and deceased, and prominent in many professions including literature, art, music, film, politics, education and history. The up-to-date bibliographies include links to book and articles about the person and in some citations there is a photograph of the person.

African American Studies Center Online (Oxford)

Includes the African American National Biography project.

Biography in Context (Gale)

A comprehensive database of biographical information on nearly 220,000 people from around the world, across all disciplines and subject areas, and throughout history.

Encyclopedia of World Biography

Includes entries of approximately 7,000 biographies on notables from every part of the world and from all time periods.

Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online

Free online access to biographies previously published in The Dictionary of Canadian Biography provided by the University of Toronto and the Université Laval. Biographies are available in both English and French.

Biography and Genealogy Master Index (Gale)

Indexes more than 13 million biographical sketches published in reference sources. This is not a full text source.

Dictionary of Literary Biography Complete Online

Biographies of writers from all eras, countries and genres.

Complete Dictionary of Scientific Biography

Provides information on the history of science through articles on the professional lives of scientists. All periods of science from classical antiquity to modern times are represented.

Print Biographical Dictionaries

Women in World History: A Biographical Encyclopedia

Dictionary of Irish Biography

Dictionary of German Biography

Genealogical Resources

Ancestry Library Edition
A vast collection of genealogical data which traces the history of millions of individuals going in some cases as far back as 1300. The collection consists of census data, vital records, directories, photos, and more.

Book-length Biographies

Catalog
Biographies
Enter the name of a person as a subject search to locate biographies in the library’s collection via the online catalog. Unfortunately, biographies are not classified separately from other types of works about a person, and it can be challenging to find the biographies of a famous person among a large set of search results. In such cases you may prefer to first consult one of the library’s biographical dictionaries to identify titles of recommended biographies or to consult with a librarian.

Subject search: Jefferson, Thomas, 1743-1826
Subject search: Wanamaker John, 1838-1922
Subject search: Benedict XVI, Pope, 1927-

On the other hand, it is comparatively easy to find biographies for classes of people since in this case the term biography is a part of the subject classification.

Subject search: Nurses and biography
Subject search: Popes and biography
Subject search: "Nobel prize" and biography

Autobiography
Please note that the subject autobiographies is used exclusively for theoretical works about autobiographies. An author search is the best way to locate published autobiographies. The library's biographical dictionaries generally identify published autobiographies.

WorldCat (OCLC)
A catalog of library holdings worldwide. WorldCat will indicate any local library holdings and also offers an inter-library loan request option.

E-ZBorrow and Interlibrary Loan
Interlibrary loans are only available for books and journals which are not owned by Falvey. The E-ZBorrow service can be used for books which the library owns, but which are currently checked out. E-ZBorrow books are provided by a local library network and tend to arrive faster than traditional interlibrary loans.

Obituaries in Newspapers & Magazines

Historical New York Times (ProQuest)

Philadelphia Inquirer

The Times Archives 1785-1985

Lexis Nexis Academic

America’s Historical Newspapers, 1690-1922 (Readex)

American Founding Era (Rotunda)

British Periodicals Collection I (ProQuest)

Readers’ Guide Retrospective: 1890-1982 (EBSCO)

The library's online collections of newspapers and magazines can often be limited to obituaries. Go to the Advanced Search interface and look for document type limits. More detailed information can be found in each database description above.

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