Also see the list of Biographical Sources maintained by the Regenstein Reference and Business Information Department.
Note: The Library owns many biographical works about individual educators; these are not listed here. But a few print reference titles are listed below. Also note that many of the encyclopedias and dictionaries include entries for persons.
Thinkers on Education (freely available)
This site is from UNESCO's International Bureau of Education and
consists of sketches of 100 famous educators from many parts of the
world. These articles were originally published in 1993-94 in
Prospects: Quarterly
Review of Comparative Education.
American National Biography
Published under the auspices of the American Council of Learned
Societies, this is the premier scholarly biographical reference on
people from all eras who have influenced and shaped American
history and culture. You'll find profiles of more than 18,000 men
and women from all walks of American life, from the well-known to
the infamous to the obscure. Entries are signed and include
bibliographies. The print edition* was published in 24 volumes in
1999, but the online source is updated quarterly "with hundreds of
new entries each year and revisions of previously published entries
to enhance their accuracy and currency." *American
national biography / general editors, John A.
Garraty, Mark C. Carnes. New York : Oxford University Press, 1999.
24 v. (E176.D58 1999 Reading Rm, floors 1 and 3 Regenstein;
D'Angelo Law, Reference)
African
American Biographical Database
This database was initiated by providing the texts of the titles
listed in Chadwyck-Healey's Black Biographical
Dictionaries, 1790-1950, although the database
continues to expand with newly published biographical dictionaries,
narratives, and so forth. The collection includes "narratives of
African American activists, business people, former slaves,
performing artists, educators, lawyers, physicians, writers, church
leaders, homemakers, religious workers, government workers,
athletes, farmers, scientists, factory workers, and more--both the
famous and the everyday person." A
list of the sources included in the database is available.
"Biography resources: Finding information on the famous, infamous,
and obscure"
This guide to freely available web-based sources is the full text
of an article by Susan A. Schreiner and Michael A. Somers that was
published in the January 2002 issue of College and Research Library
News.
Biography and Genealogy Master Index (BGMI)
This is an index to the contents of hundreds of biographical
sources.
Biography Index, 1984--
Indexes biographical information appearing in English-language
periodicals and books for many subject areas. Includes citations to
individual and collective biographies from all fields and
nationalities and covers persons from antiquity to the
present.
Contemporary Authors: A Bio-Bibliographical Guide to Current
Writers
Begun in 1962 and issued in several print series (located in
Regenstein's 1st floor Reading Room), this source covers authors of
books in all subject areas, not only literary figures, but
primarily English-language authors. Sketches give personal facts,
career, work in progress, bibliography of writings, and
biographical sources.
Who's Who in the Twentieth Century
(Oxford University Press: Oxford Reference Online)
This reference title includes 2,000 short entries on men and women
from different countries and cultures who have contributed to the
thought as well as the action of the twentieth century. The entries
are browsable and full-text searchable. So, for instance, a search
for psycholog* retrieves entries for 47 people. First published
1985 as The Longman Dictionary of 20th Century
Biography. Revised Edition published 1992 by Oxford
University Press as A Dictionary of Twentieth-Century
World Biography (Reading Rm, floor 1 Regenstein
CT120.D530 1992) . The web version corresponds to the abridged and
updated edition of the same title, Who's Who in the
Twentieth Century, published as an Oxford University
Press paperback in 1999 (Reading Rm, floor 1 Regenstein CT103 .W46
1999).
World
Biographical Index
This is a partial index to huge sets of microfiche editions of
major biographical dictionaries from all parts of the world
covering all time periods up to the recent past. For an in-depth
description of these reference sources, please consult the webpage
Biographical
Archives, prepared by the Social Sciences bibliographer Frank
Conaway.
Selected Print Titles for Biographies of Educators
Biographical dictionary
of modern American educators / Frederik Ohles, Shirley M.
Ohles, and John G. Ramsay. Imprint: Westport, Conn. : Greenwood
Press, 1997.
LA2311 .O55 1997 Regenstein, Reading Rooms, floors 1 and 4
Fifty major
thinkers on education : from Confucius to Dewey /
edited by Joy A. Palmer ; advisory editors, Liora Bresler and David
E. Cooper. London ; New York : Routledge, 2001.
LB17 .F56 2001 Regenstein, Reading Room, floor 4 and Regenstein
Stacks
Fifty modern thinkers on
education : from Piaget to the present day / edited by Joy A.
Palmer ; advisory editors, Liora Bresler and David E. Cooper.
London ; New York : Routledge, 2001.
LB17 .F57 2001 Regenstein, Reading Room, floor 4
Who'sWho in American
education : 1996-1997. 5th ed. New Providence, NJ :
Marquis Who's Who, 1995.
Regenstein, Reading Room, floor 4 LA2311.W445 1995
