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CMA183: Biographical Information

Biographical Information

Here are links to a couple of databases for finding biographical information about an artist. Note that there is information other than biographies available in these resources, so you will need to use the limiting options on the menu (top of the page for Biography in Context and left column for Biography Reference Bank) to see only biographies.

Finding Book Length Biographies

Find books and other materials owned by the Miami University Libraries by using the...

Miami University Online Catalog

Search By: Keyword, Author, Title or Subject Heading
Limit By: General Topic and Where The Item is Located
Look For: Call Number, Location, and Availability
Request Item for delivery from other MU Libraries
Continue Searching in OhioLINK for unavailable titles or additional items
Get Only Ebooks: In the left-hand column, click on the arrow next to "Material Type" and then check the box next to "eBooks".

Tip: To find books about a person enter their name in the search box like this: "Lastname, Firstname". Then, on the dropdown menu, change from keyword searching to "subject heading." This will give you a list of biographies and autobiographies of the person.

Screenshot showing a person's name entered into the search bar in the format Lastname, Firstname and the search type set to subject terms.

Why Use Books?

You do not need to read an entire book cover to cover in order to use it as a source in your research assignment.

Look at the table of contents to see if there is a chapter that addresses your narrower aspect of a broader topic covered in a book. For example: Is there a chapter about Ohio's response to the opioid epidemic in a book about the broader national response?

Or you can use the book's index to see which specific pages a book contain information about your topic and read only those pages. (For example: Perhaps a book about the opioid epidemic includes information about Ohio drug courts on pages 72-75).