The Biography Resource Center is part of the Gale Group of Databases powered by Infotrac.  This Center offers biographical information found in Commonly used and respected reference sources.  In addition, full text magazine articles and selected websites are available. Currently the database contains biographies on over 275,000 persons from early history to present day.  Updated frequently.  

With the Biography Resource Center the following commonly used searches are available

•   Name Search - enter the full name or part of the name of the person you are researching

•    Biographical Facts Search - customize your search by occupation, nationality, ethnicity etc. (i.e. you are searching for someone in a particular career and you may not have a name).

•    Advanced Search - search for full text articles by name, keyword, source, and magazine dates.

Name Search  

• In the name search box, type in the name (or part name) of the person you wish to find biographical information on. Select either Name Contains or Start of Last Name.

• From the resulting list select the person you want.

• Select one of the tabs namely: Narrative Biographies, Thumbnail Biographies, Marquis Who's Who, Magazine articles or Websites.

• A list of sources will appear.  Mark and update your list then print.

Biographical Facts Search 

• Use the search boxes and drop down arrows to select the criteria for your search.  You do not have to select a criteria for all categories, e.g., Occupation - musician, Nationality - Jamaican, Gender - male.   From the resulting list click on Marley, Bob.

• Proceed as above in the Name Search by selecting the desired type of resource tab. 

Note:  In the Biography Resource Center you may have to change the wording or title of an occupation. Some occupations that are the same or similar may have slightly different names. Therefore you may need to use, for instance, Urban Planner instead of Urban Designer or Events Coordinator instead of Events Planner.  Under Biographical Facts Search there is a link to View Occupation Terms.  This lists all the career titles included in the database.

Advanced Search

• Enter your search terms and connect them with Boolean operators: AND, OR, NOT.
• Select date/s of publication and click Search.
• The View List of Sources tab enables you to view biographical references sources, Marquis Who's Who sources, and Periodicals that are used in Biography Resource Center.

PRINT AND E-MAIL OPTIONS

Mark your options then print or email your articles.

• Print - By selecting the print button, the article or citation will be made available for printing.  Click the "OK" button to begin printing.

• E-mail - Send full-text articles, summaries, source information, etc to an email account.

For additional HELP on using this database, click Help located at the top of the page. Select the type of help you need from the help index page.