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

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 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. 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.

The database can be searched with Wilson’s Biography Reference Bank database, providing full-text narrative profiles for many of the people covered in Biography Index: Past and Present. Free 30-day trials are available to libraries and members of the press.

(www.hwwilson.com)