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Biographies Often when doing research we discover that we need to get background information on a particular person. Such information can be difficult to find, but there are resources that we can turn to for help. Many famous people have book length biographies written about them which we can locate by doing a subject search in a library catalog. However, a book length biography may be more than we need. If such is the case we can turn to a number of different types of reference biographies to locate information. One of the largest and most popular examples of this type of reference book is entitled Current Biography. Current Biography is published monthly and is cumulated in a bound edition at the end of the year. Current Biography is located in the reference collection at REF CT100 .C8 in the Williams Library.   This is an example of the monthly edition of Current Biography with a picture of Picabo Street on the cover. The aim of Current Biography is "to provide reference librarians, students, and researchers with objective, accurate, and well documented biographical articles about living leaders in all fields of human accomplishments the world over." Here is a picture of the cumulative annual edition. The Williams Library owns the complete set of Current Biography back to 1940. When attempting to locate an individual's biography we must consult the Current Biography index. Most annual volumes have an index which includes the current year and the preceding years back to the beginning of the decade. There is also a cumulative index for the set which includes the years 1940-1990. Current Biography takes a broad approach, selecting individuals who are popular living social figures. There are biographies that take a much more narrow focus. Specialized biographies are very useful in providing us with information about a person from a unique perspective. Continue on to the lesson on using Statistical Sources.