Biographies database

Biographies.net is another of the search tols from the Stands4 Network, which provides access to databases such as Abbreviations, Lyrics, Quotes, Rhymes and Symbols. It currently holds more than 2 million biographies and is arranged alphabetically as you would expect. As an example they've got 227,587 biographies under the letter A (http://www.biographies.net/biographies/A), and 72,279 biographies under the letter W (http://www.biographies.net/biographies/W). The content is derived from public domain resources such as Freebase, Wikipedia and Princeton's University WordNet.

It's obviously very easy to search, either alphabetically or via the search box. I was a little concerned when I first tried it, because I got lists of names of the same person and it wasn't possible to tell which of the Thomas Jackson's for example I wanted to look at. This has now been addressed (very quickly!) and there's now a better listing, with a little more information. Another thing that I liked was a nice citation option available in three different styles.

There are several holes in the data, and so it will be a constant never-ending task to keep it updated and full. For this the Stands4 Network will be investing in gathering more resources and working on a more comprehensive editorial tools that will let people update existing biographies as well.

The original idea behind Biographies was to also provide the general public with a tool that will allow them to post their own biographies. Their tag line is "Thousands of biographies of famous and not-so-famous individuals". They believe everyone has a special life story, which he/she is entitled to share with the world. Having said that, they do manually screen each and every biography submission to make sure it's worthy of inclusion.