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Biographical Reference

Online resources

Biography Resource Center
Provides access to Gale Group biographical sources with full-text articles from hundreds of periodicals. Search for people based on one or more personal facts such as birth and death year, nationality, ethnicity, occupation or gender. Includes the Complete Marquis Who's Who for quick reference information.

Dictionary of New Zealand Biography
Provides access to biographies of over 3,000 New Zealanders who have 'made their mark' on this country. It does not include people who are alive.

Encyclopaedia Britannica Online
Includes biographical articles from Encyclopaedia Britannica and shorter entries from Britannica Concise Encyclopedia.

Grove Art Online
Includes biographies of artists from The Dictionary of Art and The Oxford Companion to Western Art, with updates from the original publications.

Grove Music Online
Includes biographies of composers and musicians, with updates, from music dictionaries published by New Grove.

In the First Person
An index to English language personal narratives, including letters, diaries, memoirs, autobiographies and oral histories, that are either publicly available on the Web or held by repositories and archives around the world.

Internet Movie Database (IMDb)
Searchable database of people from the movies, with filmographies and brief biographies.

The New York Times archive (1851-2003)
Good source of obituaries of famous people (limit to 'Obituary' or 'Front page' in Document type).

Oxford Reference Online
Database of over 100 reference works published by Oxford University Press, with brief biographical entries. Biographical dictionaries include:

• A Dictionary of political biography
• A Dictionary of scientists
• The kings & queens of Britain
• The Oxford dictionary of popes
• The Oxford dictionary of saints
• Who's who in the classical world
• Who's who in the twentieth century

Rulers
A site listing heads of state and heads of government (and, in certain cases, de facto leaders not occupying either of those formal positions) of all countries and territories, going back to about 1700 in most cases.

Wikipedia
The biographies in this collaborative encyclopedia are more wide-ranging than in conventional reference books. As anyone can edit it, it is often interesting and informative but not always entirely reliable.

Biographical reference books

The following titles are mainly located in the Central Library Reference Collection, along with more subject-specific biographical reference works.

General

• The Cambridge biographical encyclopedia
• Dictionary of world biography
• Encyclopedia of life writing : autobiographical and biographical forms
• Great women writers : the lives and works of 135 of the world's most important women writers, from antiquity to the present
• Heroes of conscience : a biographical dictionary
• Larousse dictionary of women
• The Macmillan dictionary of women's biography
• St. James guide to biography
• Webster's biographical dictionary
• Women who ruled

20th century

• Biographical dictionary of Marxism
• Biographical dictionary of neo-Marxism
• Biographical dictionary of modern peace leaders
• Biographical dictionary of the extreme right since 1890
• Biographical dictionary of World War II
• Dictionary of contemporaries
• The international who's who
• The International who's who of women
• Longman dictionary of 20th century biography
• Obituaries from the Times, 1951-1960
• Obituaries from the Times, 1961-1970
• Obituaries from the Times, 1971-1975
• Thinkers of the twentieth century
• Who's who : an annual biographical dictionary
• Who's who in the Socialist countries : a biographical encyclopedia of 10,000 leading personalities in 16 Communist countries

American

• American social leaders and activists
• Biographical directory of the United States executive branch, 1774-1989
• The Cambridge dictionary of American biography
• Dictionary of American biography
• Dictionary of American biography : supplement
• Dictionary of Canadian biography
• Encyclopedia of American biography
• Notable American women, 1607-1950 : a biographical dictionary
• The Scribner encyclopedia of American lives
• Webster's American biographies
• Who's who in America
• Who's who in Latin America : a biographical dictionary of the outstanding living men and women of Spanish America and Brazil

Australian & New Zealand

• Australian dictionary of biography
• The Book of New Zealand women
• The Dictionary of New Zealand biography. Vol. 1, 1769-1869
• The Dictionary of New Zealand biography. Vol. 2, 1870-1900
• The Dictionary of New Zealand biography. Vol. 3, 1901-1920
• The Dictionary of New Zealand biography. Vol. 4, 1921-1940
• The dictionary of New Zealand biography. Vol. 5, 1941-1960
• Honoured by the Queen : New Zealand : recipients of honours, 1953-1993...
• The New Zealand roll of honour : New Zealanders who have served their country in peace and war, 150 years, 1845-1995
• New Zealand who's who Aotearoa

British

• The biographical dictionary of British feminists
• Biographical dictionary of British prime ministers
• The Concise dictionary of national biography : from earliest times to 1985
• A dictionary of Irish biography
• Dictionary of labour biography
• The Dictionary of Welsh biography down to 1940
• Oxford dictionary of national biography : from the earliest times to the year 2000
• Who's who 1897-1996 [electronic resource] : one hundred years of biography
• Who's who in British history : beginnings to 1901
• Who's who in Shakespeare's England
• Who's who in Stuart Britain
• Who's who in Tudor England
• Who's who of British members of Parliament : a biographical dictionary of the House of Commons ...
• Who was who : a companion to Who's who, containing the biographies of those who died

European

• An annotated index of medieval women
• Biographical dictionary of French political leaders since 1870
• Biographical dictionary of modern European radicals and socialists
• A biographical dictionary of the Byzantine empire
• Dictionary of Scandinavian biography
• Dictionnaire de biographie francaise
• Dictionnaire des intellectuels français : les personnes, le lieux, les moments
• Dizionario biografico degli Italiani
• Extraordinary women of the Medieval and Renaissance world : a biographical dictionary
• The late medieval age of crisis and renewal, 1300-1500 : a biographical dictionary
• Longman biographical directory of decision-makers in Russia and the successor states
• Renaissance and Reformation, 1500-1620 : a biographical dictionary
• The Soviet Union : a biographical dictionary
• Who's who in Europe, 1450-1750
• Who's who in the Soviet Union : a biographical encyclopedia of 5,000 leading personalities in the Soviet Union

Other biographical reference works

• Africa who's who
• An African biographical dictionary
• Biographic dictionary of Chinese communism, 1921-1965
• Biographical dictionary of Chinese women
• Biographical dictionary of Japanese history
• Biographical dictionary of Republican China
• Chinese biographical index
• Dictionary of African biography
• Dictionary of Indian biography
• The dictionary of Jewish biography
• Dictionary of Ming biography, 1368-1644
• Dictionary of national biography
• Dictionary of South African biography
• Encyclopaedia of Muslim biography : India, Pakistan, Bangladesh
• Ibn Khallikan's biographical dictionary
• Makers of modern Africa : profiles in history
• Political leaders of the contemporary Middle East and North Africa : a biographical dictionary
• Who's who in Asia and the Pacific nations
• Who's who in China. Current leaders