H.W. Wilson Announces Biography Index: Past & Present
All the Up-to-Date Content of the Reference Standard Biography Index Plus Over 60 Years of Retrospective Content

New York, New York, June 29, 2006
H.W. Wilson today announced a new version of Biography Index that combines the resource's full six-decade history of in-depth article indexing with coverage up to the present. Biography Index: Past & Present delivers the complete content of Biography Index from its 1946 inception, and continues its timely indexing of current articles with daily updates. Versatile WilsonWeb searching helps researchers find information about notable figures throughout history, right up to today's newsmakers.

Valuable for students, scholars, media professionals, and other researchers, the database covers people from across all disciplines and areas of endeavor. Information on writers, artists, statesmen, sports figures, politicians, religious leaders, actors, business people and more is reflected in over a million article citations from thousands of periodicals internationally, plus notable books indexed back to 1946. New citations, some 22,000 per year, are picked up from biographical content appearing in more than 8,000 journals and magazines covered by other WilsonWeb specialty databases, plus indexing of some 2,000 books annually.

For researchers seeking insights on historical figures that can come only from articles that reflect the sensibilities of the times in which they were written, this is a perfect resource. Updated terms for professions allow users to search using familiar, contemporary vocabulary. Names used as subject headings are standardized throughout the years of coverage to ensure retrieval of all records about an individual. Citations for new articles about historical figures can be called up with historical coverage, for all-in-one research.

The database can be searched seamlessly with Wilson's acclaimed Biography Reference Bank database, providing full-text narrative profiles for many of the people covered in Biography Index: Past & Present.

Offered exclusively on WilsonWeb, Biography Index: Past & Present is invaluable for literary and historical research. Free 30-day trials are available to libraries and members of the press. The reference standard Biography Index, with coverage from 1984 through the present, remains available as a WilsonWeb database and in print.