Biographical Information Subject Guide
Biographical Indexes
11 resources available
- Restricted to WMU users 
- Open Access
Biography Resource Center Over 450,000 biographies on more than 380,000 people, also including full-text articles from more than 300 magazines and newspapers.
Biographies Plus Illustrated Contains more than 145,000 biographies and more than 36,000 photographs. Includes full text articles from Current Biography and other biographical sources. Many of the biographies have links to other sources and citations to articles.
Who's Who on the Web Provides brief, usually up to date and usually reliable biographical information about more than 1.3 million people. Entries focus on frequently needed facts, such as birthdates, education, career, publications, and other objective data supplied by the individual to the editors. Who's Who in America biographies go back to 1607. The coverage of the rest of the Marquis Who's Who series is from 1985 to the present.
American National Biography Authoritative biographical essays on more than 17,400 deceased Americans from all eras and walks of life published by Oxford University Press. Some of these entries are for literary figures.
Biography Index Z 5301 .B5 (Reference Collection)
Indexes biographical information from thousands of periodicals and books. Coverage from 1984. Updated weekly.
Contemporary Authors Z 1224 .C6 (Ref)
Part of the Literature Resource Center, this directory provides brief biographical information about more than 120,000 authors from the US and elsewhere. Includes writers of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, drama, journalism, and many other fields.
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography An illustrated collection of 50,000 specially written biographies of the men and women who shaped all aspects of Britain's past, from the fourth century BC to the year 2000. This database excludes living people but includes the infamous and the legendary (Richard III and Robin Hood) as well as famous and documented people (Churchill and Shakespeare). Click on "Subscribers enter here."
Print: DA 28 .D47 (Ref)
Biography and Genealogy Master Index Indexes numerous printed reference sources that include usually short biograhical information on multiple persons. Covers living and deceased people all over the world in all occupations.
Biography.comIncludes brief biographical sketches of over 25,000 people, both living and deceased. A good place to do quick verification.
GoogleCurrently the largest and most popular search engine for the web. Return set is ranked by relevancy. Advanced ways of searching available.
WikipediaA multi-language free-content online encyclopedia project. Since many people have created the content of the Wikipedia, it has a wide range of information, but the articles are often not edited, it is not always reliable and some instructors may not allow its use for academic work. Cross reference Wikipedia information with other reliable sources and check the entry footnotes.
Librarian's Comment: By putting the name of the person in quotes, you can often find a website about people active today, though there are also many websites on historical people.