Biography.com is the web site for the television show “Biography” seen on the A&E Television Network. It claims to have the “Web’s best bios.” It definitely has one of the largest databases, with over 25,000 personalities and over 2,500 videos available for searchers.
The home page offers a colorful assortment of choices. Users can go immediately to the site’s search engine, click on the biography of the day, answer the question of the day, or find out more about the latest “Biography” shows on A&E. A listing of “the week’s top ten bios” provides immediate access to their biographies. Users can also search by month and day to discover the feature biography on that date. At the bottom of the home page are links to other sites related to the A&E Television Network such as HistoryChannel.com and Mysteries.com.
The biographies are searchable by keying in a person’s name or by browsing an alphabetical listing. Personalities include the living and the dead, from ancient to current times. The biographies vary in length with most of them around 200 words. Biographies for current personalities provide greater detail; and the length can be several paragraphs. Entries concentrate on the major highlights and dates of the person’s life, with some entries providing links to cross‐references. Downloading or printing the information is easy using a Web browser.
As this is primarily a commercial site, users will find the monthly programming schedule for “Biography,” subscription information for the magazine “Biography,” and a section to shop for books, videos, and other items. Another page is devoted to classroom programming and activities for teachers. Classroom calendars feature eight months of programming information, thus allowing teachers to create lessons around the offered programs.
While the searchable biography database is the core of this site, additional sections provide fun and useful information for the general browser. For instance, the section on the magazine “Biography” not only provides the typical subscription information; but it offers a feature article from a recent issue as well as a book review. Archived feature articles and book reviews are also available. The “Where are they now” section lets you catch up on the latest information on popular personalities.
The “Games” section focuses on personalities’ biographies grouped together based upon a particular theme such as game show hosts, child stars, and country music legends. Users can also answer the poll question and be eligible to win a prize. One interesting offering in this section is what they call a “BioByte,” a one‐minute documentary produced exclusively for the Web. Browser capability to view a video clip is required. One mini‐documentary is featured while access to previous biobytes is available.
The “Discussion” section allows users to engage in message boards on a variety of topics, such as the biography of the year, artists, business leaders, politicians, and musicians. Users may also browse the questions and answers to see the current trend of opinions. Instructions for logging onto the discussion groups and user guidelines are provided.
Searching the web with search engines, such as Yahoo and Excite, generally does not provide good results for biographical information requests. Thus, Biography.com provides a much needed web source for essential biographical information. It is indeed a good resource for the general public and students as it provides answers to basic questions and serves as a beginning point for research. While it does not provide in‐depth biographical information, it is a useful site offering one of the largest biography databases available on the web.
