Biographical Information Subject Guide
Biographical Indexes
11 resources available
- Restricted to WMU users 
- Open Access
Over 600,000 biographies on more than 500,000 people, also including full-text articles from more than 300 magazines and newspapers.
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.
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
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Print: DA 28 .D47 (Ref)
Provides brief biographical information about more than 1.3 million people across a variety of occupations. Entries focus on frequently needed facts, such as birthdates, education, career, publications, and other objective data supplied by the individual to the editors.
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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.
Z 5301 .B5 (Reference Collection)
Indexes biographical information from thousands of periodicals and books. Coverage from 1984. Updated weekly.
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.
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.
Includes brief biographical sketches of over 25,000 people, both living and deceased. A good place to do quick verification.
Currently the largest and most popular search engine for the web. Return set is ranked by relevancy. Advanced ways of searching available.
A 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.