Biography Reference Bank provides biographical information on approximately half a million people, from antiquity to the present, along with thousands of images. BRB offers substantive narrative profiles, each about 2,000 words long, from H.W. Wilson publications and other respected publishers.

The biographies are searchable by name, profession, title, place of origin, gender, race/ethnicity, titles of works, date of birth, date of death, keyword, and presence of images. Daily updates provide up-to-the-minute coverage of newsmakers.

Full-text articles, abstracts, and images gleaned from thousands of magazines and journals cover new names and expand on existing profiles. Book review excerpts and full text reviews help users find and select print biographies.

For more comprehensive biographical sketches of notable Americans, see also the American National Biography. For Britons, see also the Dictionary of National Biography.