<html>
<body>
NACO catalogers:<br><br>
This is good news! I've restored the link to this resource (it's now
called World Biographical Information System) on the "Authority
Control at Yale" site under the "Biography" section:<br>
<a href="http://www.library.yale.edu/cataloging/authorities/biography.html" eudora="autourl">http://www.library.yale.edu/cataloging/authorities/biography.html</a><br><br>
Also, I did a quick test and am pleased to report that the new site
doesn't have any of the problems with dates that we noted with the
previous site. If you'll remember, the old site simply gave a date of
birth or death without indicating such things as whether it was a circa
date or a firm date. We had to consult the printed index to be sure. The
new site *does* include the circa date.<br><br>
Example:<br><br>
I searched "Bourne, Stephen" and got:<br><br>
Name: Bourne, Stephen <br>
Year of Birth: c.1792 <br>
Year of Death: 1868 <br>
Gender: m <br>
Occupation: journalist; cotton grower; magistrate <br>
Archive: British Biographical Archive (BBA) <br>
Fiche Location: I 130,210 <br><br>
It used to be that the search results gave simply "1792" by
itself while the printed British Biographical Index gave "c.
1792". Now they appear to be in synch.<br><br>
-Manon<br>
<br><br>
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite>Date: Tue, 07 Dec 2004 10:58:59
-0500<br>
To: Yale Library list <yulib-l@lists.yale.edu><br>
From: Suzanne Lorimer <suzanne.lorimer@yale.edu><br>
Subject: World Biographical Index<br>
<br>
I'm pleased to announce that Yale once again has access to K.G. Saur's
database, the World Biographical Index.<br><br>
In 1986, K.G. Saur issued the first of its biographical archives, a
project which set out to identify the major biographical reference works
published from the 16th to the early 20th century pertaining to a country
or to a specific language, region, or culture. Saur then made
available in one alphabetical sequence all of the full-text entries on
the same person from each of these works. Based on the digitization
of this extensive series of Biographical Archives on microfiche, the
World Biographical Index provides access to more than 3.6 million short
biographies of people -- not to the full text biographies -- from all
centuries as well as all countries, cultures, and regions of the
world.<br>
The countries, regions, or cultures now available for searching are
Africa, Australia, China, the Classical World, France, Germany, Great
Britain, Greece, India, Italy, Japan, Jewish, Latin America, Poland,
Portugal, Russia, Scandinavia (Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway,
Sweden), South East Asia (Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia,
Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam), Spain, and
Turkey. Still to be added are Arab-Islamic, Baltic (Estonia,
Latvia, Lithuania), Benelux (Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands),
Canada, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, Hungary, Korea, South East
Europe, the Soviet Union, and the United States.<br>
<br>
For access to the full-text biographical entries, use the Archive and
Fiche Location information included in each entry in the Index to locate
the biographies in the microfiche sets listed under Other Versions on the
database's information page. These microfiche sets are housed in
the annex off the Starr Main Reference Room.<br><br>
Access this source through its
<a href="http://resources.library.yale.edu/online/viewrecorddetpublic.asp?whatcaseedit=295">information
page</a> or directly
<a href="http://infotrac.galegroup.com/menu">here</a> (scroll to the
bottom of the page and click Start Searching under World Biographical
Information System Online (WBIS Online).<br><br>
-Sue Lorimer<br><br>
Suzanne Lorimer<br>
Coordinator of Reference Services<br>
Research Services and Collections Department<br>
226 Sterling Memorial Library, Yale University<br>
P.O. Box 208240<br>
130 Wall Street<br>
New Haven, CT 06520-8240<br>
(phone) 203-432-8371 (fax) 203-432-8527</blockquote></body>
</html>