HOW TO FIND BIOGRAPHICAL RESOURCES

You will often have an assignment which requires you to find biographical information about an individual. Biographical research sources should include, at the very least:

• place and date of the subject's birth;
• the subject's death date, if no longer living;
• and what the individual is known for.

An entire book written about the life of one individual is called a biography. Sometimes a book is written about the lives of several individuals who have something in common, such as female aviators; alternately, a book may contain brief entries on the lives of many individuals with nothing in common other than fame, such as Webster's biographical dictionary. Any collection of biographical material on more than one individual is called a collective biography. Often a well-known person writes about his or her own life. A book written by its own subject is an autobiography.

Depending on who your subject is, and how much information you need on him or her, you can look for biographical information in the following places:

• Encyclopedias can help you identify a person and place him or her in time. There are often bibliographies at the end of articles to steer you to other sources. General encyclopedias are located in call number R 031 of the Rome campus library's reference collection. Encyclopedia Britannica* is available online through Galileo, and has many informative biographical articles.
  
  
• Books can be found by performing a subject search in the Shorter library catalog, using the individual's name (last name first) as the subject. It is also useful to search by the person's occupation; if he was a painter, do a subject search on artists to find collective biographies, such as encyclopedias and dictionaries, on artists.
  
  
• Use periodical indexes to locate magazine and journal articles about the person. Biography Index is available at the Livingston Library on Shorter's Rome campus. This index is available for the years 1955 to the present and gives references to books and articles about its subjects. It is also useful to search according to your subject's occupation. If you are looking for an artist, you might check the Art Index or the Grove art online* on Galileo; if your subject was a musician, try the Music index (only available on-campus).
  
  
• Check the reference collection. Reference books are a special collection of high demand, non-circulating books arranged by Dewey call number, as are the books in the regular collection. The call numbers for reference books begin with an R, and the call number for general, collective biographies is 920.

Some of the general biographical sources available in Shorter's libraries are:

Black lives: Essays in African American biography.

Current biography yearbook. (1940 - current)
Rome, R 920.02 C93

Dictionary of national biography. (1901 - 1985)
Rome, R 920.042 D56

Encyclopedia of American biography.
North Atlanta, R 920.073 En1

Encyclopedia of world biography in Gale Reference Resources
Online.

Men of mark in Georgia.
Rome, R 920.0758 N81m [1974] ; 920.0758 N81m [1912] (circulating copy)

Notable American women: 1607 - 1950.
Rome, R 920.720973 N84n

Notable American women: The modern period.
Rome, R 920.720973 N84

Merriam-Webster's biographical dictionary [1995]
Lawrenceville, North Atlanta, Riverdale, R 920.02 M55

Webster's biographical dictionary.
Rome, R 920.02 W39 [1972]; 920.02 W39w [1943] (circulating copy)

Who was who in America (1607 - 1989).
Rome, R 920.073 W62

Who's who in America.
North Atlanta, Riverdale, Rome, R 920.073 W62w

World leaders of the twentieth century.
North Atlanta, R 920.00904 W89 v.1 & 2 (Also available as an eBook.)

Subject-specific biographical material (such as that on artists, musicians, educators, religious figures, etc.) is also available in the reference collection within the call number for that subject. For instance, here are some subject-specific biographical sources located outside the 920s:

African American writers.
Rome, R 810.989607303 Af8

American men and women of science.
Rome, R 509.22 Am3

American Women Songwriters: A Biographical Dictionary.
Rome, R 780.922 G73a

American writers: A collection of literary biographies.
Rome, R 810.9 Am3

Biographical dictionary of Christian missions.
Rome, R 266.00922 B52

Encyclopedia of the great composers and their music.
North Atlanta, R 780.922 C88c

Lives of the popes: The pontiffs from St. Peter to John Paul II.
North Atlanta, Rome, R 282.0922 M12l

The new Grove dictionary of music and musicians.
Rome, R 780.3 N42n 2001

Nobel laureates, 1901-2000.
North Atlanta, R 001.440922 Sy6n

A reader's guide to twentieth-century writers.
Rome, R 820.9004 R22

The Scribner encyclopedia of American lives: Sports figures.
Rome, R 796.0922 Sc3

Who's who in American art.
North Atlanta, Rome, R 709.730922 W62

Who's who in finance and industry.
Lawrenceville, North Atlanta, Riverdale, Rome, R 330.922 W62w

Women writers in the United States: A timeline of literary, cultural, and social history.
Rome, R 810.99287 D29w

*Part of the Database Offerings in GALILEO, Georgia's Virtual Library.