[yul-naco] Fwd: World Biographical Index

[Manon Theroux]

NACO catalogers:

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:
http://www.library.yale.edu/cataloging/authorities/biography.html

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.

Example:

I searched "Bourne, Stephen" and got:

Name:  Bourne, Stephen
Year of Birth:  c.1792
Year of Death:  1868
Gender:  m
Occupation:  journalist; cotton grower; magistrate
Archive:  British Biographical Archive (BBA)
Fiche Location:  I 130,210

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.

-Manon


>Date: Tue, 07 Dec 2004 10:58:59 -0500
>To: Yale Library list <yulib-l at lists.yale.edu>
>From: Suzanne Lorimer <suzanne.lorimer at yale.edu>
>Subject: World Biographical Index
>
>I'm pleased to announce that Yale once again has access to K.G. Saur's 
>database, the World Biographical Index.
>
>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.
>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.
>
>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.
>
>Access this source through its 
><http://resources.library.yale.edu/online/viewrecorddetpublic.asp?whatcaseedit=295>information 
>page or directly <http://infotrac.galegroup.com/menu>here (scroll to the 
>bottom of the page and click Start Searching under World Biographical 
>Information System Online (WBIS Online).
>
>-Sue Lorimer
>
>Suzanne Lorimer
>Coordinator of Reference Services
>Research Services and Collections Department
>226 Sterling Memorial Library, Yale University
>P.O. Box 208240
>130 Wall Street
>New Haven, CT  06520-8240
>(phone) 203-432-8371  (fax) 203-432-8527
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