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ART 187 (Hamilton): Finding 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.

Biography in Context
A full-text database of biographical information on people from throughout history, around the world, and across all disciplines and subject areas.

It combines biographies from multiple Gale reference publications, such as Contemporary Authors, Encyclopedia of World Biography, Dictionary of American Biography, and Directory of American Scholars, with articles from more than 300 magazines, such as American History, The Christian Century, and U.S. News & World Report.
Biography Reference Bank
This biographical database offers in-depth profiles from Current Biography and World Authors, the periodical coverage of Biography Index and specialist content of Junior Authors & Illustrators. It provides full-text articles, images and abstracts from today’s leading magazines and journals.

Biography Reference Bank allows students and patrons to quickly find the content they're are looking for. Users can search for individuals based on any combination of occupation, activity, gender, place of origin, birthday and lifespan. Results can be limited by source type, and searchable indexes can be used to browse by biography name, document type, geographic terms and more. Some third party publications are included, such as a subset of the biographies from Oxford's American National Biography.

Finding Book Length Biographies

To find books about a specific person, first click the link to the Advanced Search option on the library's homepage.

On the Advanced Search page, choose the following settings:

From the radio buttons at the top of the page, choose OhioLINK Search.
On the search form, choose Subject from the first dropdown menu.
Enter the person's name in this format: Lastname, Firstname (example: Twain, Mark)
Choose Books from the dropdown menu under Material Type.

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).

Last Updated: Sep 9, 2025 2:53 PM
URL: https://libguides.lib.miamioh.edu/ART187
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