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Using Biography Resource Center |
to find profiles of famous people |
Use this database to:
- Locate essays on past and present notable people world wide.
- Find brief biographical capsules on lesser-known figures.
- Access Contemporary Authors.
- Read biographical articles in periodicals.
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About this database:
Over 340,000 people are profiled in this database. They come from many fields, countries and time periods. The full content of over 700 volumes of print reference books form the core of the database. Also included are biographies from 325 magazines and about 27.000 images.
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Searching the database
Go to Biography Resource Center. (You will need your library card.). The default search is a simple name search. Type in the person’s name and click on Search. If there are several people whose names match your search terms, you will get a list of people to choose from. Click on the one you want and you will get one or more sources of information. The sources will be arranged under the tabs of Biographies, Brief Biographies, Magazines and News, and Websites. Click on the tabs for the types of articles you wish to read. Not all persons in the database will have every category of information.
There are three other ways to search. With the Biographical Facts Search, you create a list of people who fit your criteria—using occupation, nationality, time period, gender. With the Advanced Search, one can look for key words in the text of the biographies, choose the source publication and combine search elements. A Category Search groups notables in such broad categories the Great Depression, Social Reformers, and British Royalty. |
Searching Tips
- Remember, when you see the results of your search, you are seeing just one type of results (Biographies, Brief biographies, Magazines, Websites). If a tab is gray, there are no resources available for that person.
- Don't be surprised by duplication among sources. The reference works which comprise this database are all from the same publisher. They frequently "borrow" passages from one publication to another.
- If you don't have a person's complete name, or if you are unsure of the spelling, you can use Advanced Search or Biographical Facts search to locate a biography.
- You don't need to know a person's exact year of birth or death to use that criteria in a Biograhical Facts search. Entering a date range (decade, century or even millennium) can be useful.
- If the name of the occupation (in a Biographical Facts search) is not obvious, you can bring down the View Occupation Terms menu to consult a list of occupations recognized by the database (e.g. use seer or clairvoyant not fortune-teller).
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Sample searches
Question: I’m writing a report on Sally Ride and all the biographies are out. Can I get something on the computer?
Search procedure: This is a good example for the basic Name Search. Just type in Sally Ride (or Ride, Sally) and click on Search. There are 12 narrative bios, 1 brief bio, 22 magazine articles and 2 websites.
Question: My family is from Algeria. Are there any famous Algerians?
Search procedure: From the search screen, click on Biographical Facts Search. Choose Algerian from the Nationality menu. Click in the Search box. There are 88 hits. You can click on each or narrow the search by adding an occupation (e.g. author, president, leader) or a time range (e.g. born 1900-1950).
Question: Can we find famous Peace Corps veterans with a Wellesley connection?
Search procedure: This calls for an Advanced Search. From the search screen, click on Advanced Search. In the first box, type Peace Corps, and change the index type to Full Text. In the next box. type Wellesley and again change the index type to Full Text. Click on Search and you will see 17 possibilities.
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Similar databases
Wikipedia is a great source for biographies. Not only is the database enormous, but there are usually plenty of hyperlinks from terms used in the article, and related web sites for further information. Biography Resource Center however, provides content from respected reference works from an established publisher and access to numerous articles representing a range of perspectives.
Biography.com is Biography Channel’s database of 25,000 biographies.
InfoPlease.com has 30,000 short biographies among a sea of ads.
WorldBook Encyclopedia—Contains the entire text of the print version and thousands of additional articles. (You will need your library card.) |
Please note: If your search is not successful, it’s possible that a new search with different terms will yield better results.
Please ask a Reference Librarian for help. Call 781-235-1610. |
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