The Biography Database 1680‐1830 is a database of biographical information taken from five different sources during the prescribed time period indicated above. This biographical information concerns personages in Great Britain taken from directories, book subscription lists, journals, society membership lists, and special collections. The reviewer received two packets. One contained issue 1 of this database, which comprised a CD, 31/2 × 5 computer disk, and instructions for loading same, dated 1995. The second packet contained issue 2 of the database, which comprised a CD and instructions for loading, dated 1998. According to the instructions in issue 1, the floppy disk and CD are to be loaded together; and the instructions indicate how to do this. Issue 2 is to be installed separately from issue 1; and the two CDs are to run separately from each other. A new feature of issue 2 is that the gender index from issue 1 has been significantly expanded to provide links to all the field descriptor tags.
The instructions to load the database are concise and were of great help in loading the software. The CD uses the BookMarc‐Cd search engine, developed by Libpac Computer
Services, as its major search engine. Once loaded, the user is able to search the database through a number of indexes, all available through a menu structure or through icons available at the top of the screen. These indexes are: keyword, all names, official names, body name, title, occupation, office, address, directories, subscription lists, other sources, source author, source imprint, source subject, source date, extant, and gender. Once an index is selected, the user can browse through the entire list, or use the search function available at the bottom of each index. Four other icons are available: boolean search, name match, start new search, and title record view windows.
I was impressed with the BookMarc search engine. Once the database was loaded (which in itself is a considerable task and could not have been accomplished without the instruction sheets), it was easy to pick and choose icons to search the database. This type of information is especially useful for genealogy, research in special collections, and historical research. I felt that a user’s manual would be more appropriate to the looseleaf instructions in each packet; but other than that, I was genuinely impressed with the contents and the searching capabilities of this database.
