Biography Reference Bank
Biography Reference Bank
Grades: 7+ | Subject(s): Biographies | Overall rating: 9
EBSCOHost Biography Reference Bank is an incredible resource for our students. The opening search window looks very familiar to the other EBSCOHost database services, so students may already be familiar with the interface. According to Galileo, Biography Reference Bank provides “biographical information on approximately half a million people, from antiquity to the present, along with thousands of images. It contains the full text of the articles from more than 100 volumes of biographical reference books published by H. W. Wilson, including all the articles from all volumes of Current Biography, the World Author Series, Nobel Prize Winners, World Artists, World Film Directors, American Reformers, and numerous biographical books on musicians and composers throughout history” (Galileo, 2014).
From the home screen, users can search by title, author, ISSN, and journal title of the biographical article or search by person’s name, occupation, subject, place of birth, date of birth, gender, or many other fields. Users can filter search results and use Boolean operators to provide more specific results. There is also a feature to limit search results by era or time period.
For the purposes of this assignment, I searched for the name “Elvis” without any filtering or additional search terms, and 2,287 items were returned from this search. I clicked on item #4, Elvis Presley. Basic biographical was listed including his full name, a picture, his date and place of birth and death, and occupation. Also, three biographies from different sources were linked to the page. Users were given options to view additional biographical information by clicking on links for related information, including articles published in academic journals, trade publications, magazines, books, and biographies, or names, reviews, interviews, and obituaries. Several tools were also offered for users to add the article to their EBSCOHost folder, or print, e-mail, save, cite, or export the document. Users could also create a note or a permanent link to the document or share the information on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, or several other social networking sites.
I then decided to search for someone less known. So, I searched for my favorite author within the education field, Parker Palmer, and found 27 search results. His biographical information was substantially less than that of Elvis Presley; however, I did find some interesting articles written by and about him. I also decided to search for a specific date of birth. I searched for my birthday (February 7th), and did not find any results. However, when I searched for my son’s birthday (May 26th), I found 491 results. I applied the filter to only display hits with names with biographies and images and my search results filtered to only include 57 items.
I think this would be a great resource for students researching an individual. Because biographical information was included, as well as information about them and/or written by them, this could potentially be the only place a person needs to look for biographical research. I assigned a value of 9 to this resource because I did not like being required to click on the links to the left to find more information. Many students are impatient and not willing to dig for information on a website. It does not seem intuitive to filter results without first displaying all items for students. However, with a brief teacher introduction to the database, I think this obstacle could be eliminated.
Book Source:
Elvis Presley. (2005). Biography Reference Bank. Retrieved from http://ts.isil.westga.edu/login?
url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=brb&AN=203288530&site=ehost-
live.
Parker J. Palmer. (2005). Biography Reference Bank. Retrieved from http://ts.isil.westga.edu/login?
url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=brb&AN=203314093&site=ehost-
live.
Grades: 7+ | Subject(s): Biographies | Overall rating: 9
EBSCOHost Biography Reference Bank is an incredible resource for our students. The opening search window looks very familiar to the other EBSCOHost database services, so students may already be familiar with the interface. According to Galileo, Biography Reference Bank provides “biographical information on approximately half a million people, from antiquity to the present, along with thousands of images. It contains the full text of the articles from more than 100 volumes of biographical reference books published by H. W. Wilson, including all the articles from all volumes of Current Biography, the World Author Series, Nobel Prize Winners, World Artists, World Film Directors, American Reformers, and numerous biographical books on musicians and composers throughout history” (Galileo, 2014).
From the home screen, users can search by title, author, ISSN, and journal title of the biographical article or search by person’s name, occupation, subject, place of birth, date of birth, gender, or many other fields. Users can filter search results and use Boolean operators to provide more specific results. There is also a feature to limit search results by era or time period.
For the purposes of this assignment, I searched for the name “Elvis” without any filtering or additional search terms, and 2,287 items were returned from this search. I clicked on item #4, Elvis Presley. Basic biographical was listed including his full name, a picture, his date and place of birth and death, and occupation. Also, three biographies from different sources were linked to the page. Users were given options to view additional biographical information by clicking on links for related information, including articles published in academic journals, trade publications, magazines, books, and biographies, or names, reviews, interviews, and obituaries. Several tools were also offered for users to add the article to their EBSCOHost folder, or print, e-mail, save, cite, or export the document. Users could also create a note or a permanent link to the document or share the information on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, or several other social networking sites.
I then decided to search for someone less known. So, I searched for my favorite author within the education field, Parker Palmer, and found 27 search results. His biographical information was substantially less than that of Elvis Presley; however, I did find some interesting articles written by and about him. I also decided to search for a specific date of birth. I searched for my birthday (February 7th), and did not find any results. However, when I searched for my son’s birthday (May 26th), I found 491 results. I applied the filter to only display hits with names with biographies and images and my search results filtered to only include 57 items.
I think this would be a great resource for students researching an individual. Because biographical information was included, as well as information about them and/or written by them, this could potentially be the only place a person needs to look for biographical research. I assigned a value of 9 to this resource because I did not like being required to click on the links to the left to find more information. Many students are impatient and not willing to dig for information on a website. It does not seem intuitive to filter results without first displaying all items for students. However, with a brief teacher introduction to the database, I think this obstacle could be eliminated.
Book Source:
Elvis Presley. (2005). Biography Reference Bank. Retrieved from http://ts.isil.westga.edu/login?
url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=brb&AN=203288530&site=ehost-
live.
Parker J. Palmer. (2005). Biography Reference Bank. Retrieved from http://ts.isil.westga.edu/login?
url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=brb&AN=203314093&site=ehost-
live.