ARBA Guide to Biographical Resources 1986‐1997

Citation

Hurych, J. (1999), "ARBA Guide to Biographical Resources 1986‐1997", Collection Building, Vol. 18 No. 4, pp. 176-178. https://doi.org/10.1108/cb.1999.18.4.176.1

The major goal of this guide is to provide a representative selection of biographical dictionaries and related works that will be useful in reference work as well as in collection development. The guide was compiled by two humanities bibliographers from the University of Colorado at Denver. The editors have included more than 1,100 sources selected on the basis of three criteria:

1. 1.

   (1) the work was published within the past 12 years;

2. 2.

   (2) the work was reviewed in American Reference Books Annual (ARBA);

3. 3.

   (3) the work contains substantial biographical information.

Each entry provides complete bibliographic information plus a critical evaluation of the work. In some cases, the original review is given, and in others the review has been rewritten to reflect a new edition of the work. The guide is divided into two major parts: Part 1 International and National Biographies, and Part 2 Biographies in Professional Fields.

Part 1 is the smaller of the two. The international section is divided into “current” and “retrospective” entries, and the editors claim that the division is somewhat arbitrary. The national and regional section is divided geographically, and more than 20 countries or geographical areas are included. Here the inclusions again seem arbitrary and uneven, but the editors reason that chapters need to be devoted only to those countries that publish many significant biographical works. Since indexes to biographical sources are not included, the editors have done an excellent job of listing additional significant sources of biographical material.

Each chapter in Part 2 of the guide presents a short introduction, defining the scope of the professional field, explaining coverage and listing several major biographies of that field. Professional fields are classified into the 22 categories, including history, geography, political science, military science, psychology, sociology, social work, law, business and economics, women’s studies, education, literature, applied arts, fine arts, music, communications and mass media, performing arts, folklore and religion, library and information science, science and technology, health sciences, and sports and recreation. The classification of the fields is interesting, although it does not follow any standard classification of knowledge.

The guide contains an author/title index, a subject index and an impressive list of contributors/reviewers. This is an impressive work that should be extremely useful to scholars and students in academic libraries.