National Biographies are an important genre of reference work. They are, in effect, the biographical record of significant people in a particular country. They usually only include people who have died five years before the date of publication and include people from all walks of life from clergy to sports figures. Entries are written by experts on their subject. Each entry is accompanied by bibliographies and locations for primary sources. The most famous ones in the English-speaking word are the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography for the United Kingdom, and The American National Biography. But the reference collection has significant holdings for these for nearly all nations for which they have been published. Many of them are available online.
