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Biography Sources


Introduction

Library of Congress Classification

Online Catalog

Materials in Reference Collection

Indexes and Databases

Internet Resources

Citing Sources


Introduction

Biography is the study of famous individuals, both living and dead. While there are biographical books on many famous individuals (both popular and academic), there are resources that encapsulate information about an individual and provide resources to learn more about him or her. These include biographical dictionaries and encyclopedias. Many resources will only detail the individuals the fit a certain category, such as women, latinos, Americans, writers, scientists, etc. Autobiographies are written by the subject.

Care must be taken when conducting biographical research because the information may not be objective. Biographies written by critics may be unduly negative, while those written by fans may be too positive. To remedy this, find as many different sources as possible to balance out the viewpoints in the sources.


Library Of Congress Classification

Library materials are organized by a system created by the Library of Congress that groups materials based on what they are about. This LC system uses letters and numbers to determine the call number of a book, which serves as that book’s address within the collection. The advantage of this system is that books about the same subject, say Napoleon, should be in the same area. Find a good book on your subject and you should be able to find others in the same area.

The Library of Congress system places books on biography in Class CT. These classes are further broken down into subclasses that define more specific subjects. Some important subclasses for biography study are listed below. Click here for a more complete look at Library of Congress Class C.

CT 21-9999

Biography

CT 3200-3830

Biography, women


Online Catalog

Specific books and other library materials can be found by searching the Online Catalog. This is a catalog that not only lists the collection of the Rockhurst University Greenlease Library, but can also be used to see the collections of the other MOBIUS libraries. For more information about the MOBIUS consortium, visit their website .

One can search by title, author, subject and keyword to find books owned by the library. Good first searches are subject keyword and title keyword searches. A good research strategy is called subject heading tracing. This strategy involves first doing a keyword search to find books relevant to a topic. Once a ‘good’ book is found, look at its subject headings. Then do a subject search and type in that subject heading. You should find other books on your topic this way.

Make sure that you search by subject, not by author. Many people make the mistake of searching for books on Mark Twain by doing an author search. That will retrieve the books written by Mark Twain but not the books about Mark Twain.


Materials In Reference Collection

The library’s reference collection contains materials that are quite useful to students studying biography. These reference items include:

American National Biography
(REF CT 213 A68)

Chambers Biographical Dictionary
(REF CT 103 C4)

Current Biography, 1940-
(REF CT 100 C8)

Dictionary of American Biography
(REF E 176 D56)

Dictionary of National Biography
(REF DA 28 D45 1921)

Great Lives from History, 20th Century
(REF CT 120 G69)

Great Lives from History, American
(REF CT 214 G74)

Great Lives from History, American Women
(REF HQ 1412 G74)

Great Lives from History, Ancient and Medieval
(REF CT 113 G74)

Great Lives from History, British and Commonwealth
(REF CT 774 G74)

Great Lives from History, Renaissance to 1900
(REF CT 104 G68)

International Who’s Who, 1974-
(REF CT 120 I5)

Lives & Legacies: An Encyclopedia of People Who Changed the World

(REF Q 141 S54 1999)

Merriam-Webster Biographical Dictionary
(REF CT 103 M47)

Missouri Biographical Dictionary
(REF CT 244 M57)

Notable American Women
(REF CT 3260 N57)

Notable Black American Men
(REF E 185.86 N68) 

Notable Black American Scientists

(REF Q 141 N726 1999)

Notable Black American Women
(REF E 185.96 N68)

Notable Latino Americans
(REF E 184 S75 M35)

Notable Twentieth-Century Scientists

(REF Q 141 N73 1995)

Scribner Encyclopedia of American Lives
(REF CT 213 S37 1998)

Who’s Who in America, 1921-
(REF E 663 W56)


Indexes And Databases

Indexes and databases are tools used to find journal articles about a particular topic. Some are available only in print, while others will be electronic and may even contain the full-text of the article. See our Electronic Resources page for a complete list of electronic indexes and databases.

Biography Index, 1946-
(INDEX AREA Z 5301 B5)
This print index contains citations to biographical articles appearing in magazines, newspapers and selected reference sources.

Discovering Collection
This is a collection of information in the humanities (literature, history, biography, cultures), science and social sciences. View a list of the resources included in this database.

Readers’ Guide to Periodical Literature, 1802-
(INDEX AREA AI 3 R48)
Going back to the beginning of the 19th century, this print index is a great resource for finding contemporary viewpoints and reactions to past events.

America: History & Life
This database covers U.S. and Canadian history and area studies, with citations and abstracts of articles appearing in over 1800 scholarly journals. Also includes citations for book and media reviews, as well as dissertations. The database is updated monthly. Coverage is from 1964 through the present.

Historical Abstracts
Citations and abstracts to scholarly journal articles covering history 1450 to the present, but excluding the US and Canada. Citations to books and dissertations. Covers approximately 1800 journals in over 50 languages. This database is updated monthly and coverage is from 1965 to the present.

Humanities E-Book Project
The American Council of Learned Societies provides this database which is the full-text of both in-print and out-of-print important books in the field of history and other humanities studies. Due to copyright restrictions, the full-text cannot be printed or downloaded from the database. Some of the titles are available for purchase directly from the publishers through the database.

In the First Person
An index to diaries, letters, oral histories and personal narratives covering many subjects, all in the English language. The sources are repositories and collections which are available free on the web. Source formats include text, audio and video files.

EBSCOhost
This is a online service that includes several databases that offer full text articles from scholarly and popular periodicals in many subject areas. Academic Search Premier and MasterFILE Premier are the largest databases within EBSCOhost that identify articles from the social sciences, humanities, general science and more.

Communication & Mass Media Complete
This is an index to research journals in the areas of communication and mass media studies. More information.


Internet Resources

Biographical Dictionary
http://www.s9.com/biography
This comprehensive website contains biographical information on over 27,000 individuals.

Biography.com
http://www.biography.com/search
This companion website to A&E’s Biography television series offers information on over 20,000 personalities.

Lives, the Biography Websource
http://amillionlives.com
This megasite claims to be the largest guide to biography on the web.

Women's History
http://www.gale.com/free_resources/whm/index.htm
A free source from the Gale Group which links to biographies on women from many historical eras.

Black History
http://www.gale.com/free_resources/bhm/index.htm
A free source from the Gale Group which links to biographies on blacks from many historical eras.

Hispanic Heritage
http://www.gale.com/free_resources/chh/index.htm
A free source from the Gale Group which links to biographies on hispanics from many historical eras.


Citing Sources

For information on citing resources in a research paper, see Citing Print and Electronic Resources in Research Papers.

Updated June 23, 2008

Permission is granted for unlimited noncommercial use of this guide.

 
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