Biography Reference Bank contains biographical information on more than 500,000 people from antiquity to the present including more than 110,000 biographies. It brings together Biography Index, Current Biography Illustrated, the World Author Series, the American National Biography series, Nobel Prize Winners, World Artists, World Film Directors, American Reformers, and more into one database. Also included are more than 36,000 images.
Search tips:
When you select Biography Reference Bank you will be brought to a database selection page. To begin your search, click in the box by the words Biography Reference Bank. This will take you to the advanced search page. You can perform a basic search by entering the name of the person you want to search for in the box next to the word Find and clicking on the word Start. As the library has a limited number of user licenses, please always click on the words Exit Program in the upper right hand portion of the page when you are through with your searches.
The search defaults to an “All-Smart search”. This search will assume truncation (for example if you type in cat, the system will search for cat, cats, catalyst etc.) It will also assume Boolean search operators such as AND, OR, NOT. For example if you search Thomas Jefferson, it will also find Jefferson, Thomas and could potentially find George Jefferson and B.J. Thomas if they were both mentioned in the same article. The database lists names last name, first name, for example Jefferson, Thomas. For the most exact search when you know the name you are searching for, type last name, first name in quotation marks; for example “Jefferson, Thomas”.
If you wish to get a list of people who all share the same career or background and gender, for example female engineers, use the drop down boxes at the bottom of the advanced search page. Using these boxes you can perform a search, without using a name, by profession, gender, and place of origin. For example you can develop a list of female engineers born in the United States.
Where is it: Go to the UNLV Libraries' home page http://www.library.unlv.edu. Select the Articles and Databases tab, click on the A-Z List of Databases and then on the letter B and select Biography Reference Bank.
Quick Link:
http://hwwilsonweb.com/
