A biography is a written account of a person's life. An autobiography is a personal account of one's life.

Collective biographies - books with biographical information about more than one person - are shelved in the nonfiction part of the library and begin with the call number 920, followed by the first three letters of the author's last name.

Online resources which include specialized encyclopedia articles:

Magazines, Newspapers, and Periodicals are located near librarians desks on both levels of the Annenberg library.

For a list of titles click HERE.

Primary Sources. Primary sources often have the immediacy of an eyewitness.  They can provide details that may not be available to an outside observer or scholar. But they may also present information in a manner colored by the author's personal views or experience. For example, a Palestinian describing  his life under Israeli rule gives a valuable personal account of what  conditions are like. Yet in looking at such an account, one might ask whether the author's individual experiences are typical of the average Palestinian.  Is his account affected by his political views or affiliation? The reader must presume that this eyewitness account would be different from a version given by an Israeli living in the same town. Both accounts might be accurate, in which case you would have to consult other primary and secondary sources to gain an understanding of what life on the West Bank is like.

Secondary Sources. A secondary source may or may not offer information that is more analytical and comprehensive than that found in a primary source. The secondary source author has the advantage of hindsight and, in many cases, access to several primary sources and thus to several perspectives. The author may have more of an objective distance from the events being depicted. But a secondary source is only as factually accurate as the primary sources it uses. And the secondary source author may write an account as colored by personal views as an eyewitness might. Thus a secondary account of Palestinian life on the West Bank in a newspaper that targets a Palestinian audience might reflect and reinforce the publication's editorial stance about the Arab-Israeli conflict.

 Some sources are not clearly primary or secondary and must be considered carefully. For example, is a television documentary a primary or secondary source? On the one hand, it contains visual presentation of primary sources, such as interviews. On the other hand, the interviews and the presentation of the topic in general are a product of the filmmaker's interpretation of what is important in covering the topic. In this case, the source could be both primary and secondary.

Source: Gale, Student Resource Center>Research Guide