Gale Biography in Context: People of Interest

Who was Miep Gies?

Miep Gies

Why was Hypatia of Alexandria important?

What did Beulah Henry invent?

Where did Florence Nightingale do her work?


When did Alexander the Great live?

Which missions did Canadian astronaut Dafydd Rhys Williams take part in?

How did Tim Berners-Lee change the world?

Sir Tim Berners-Lee

And how can you find everything written by and about Albert Einstein? 

Albert Einstein

Do you enjoy reading about the people who've made an impact in sports, medicine, diplomacy, physics, agronomy, music, philosophy, theater, politics, space exploration, or literature?

Are you researching for a school paper?

We have just the database for you! Using your library card you have free access to Gale Biography in Context.

How to get there?

1. Go to WPL's website at www.mywpl.org 
2. On the purple toolbar, click on Resources
   
   
3. Under the far-right column, under Research, click on Online Databases 
4. In the By Subject section, click on Biographies 
5. In the Biography section you will see "Gale –Biography in Context" and next to that title, you will see 2 icons. 
6. The left icon, which looks like a house, is what you should click if you wish to access Gale

from outside the library, e.g. your home.

Once you're in the database, you can search by the name of the person you're researching, by their profession, by the title of a document, or you can browse the alphabetical list of biographies available – over 5,000 of them!

For example, I used "soccer" as my search term and 755 articles were returned, some about soccer, some about specific players, and some about writers that wrote about the game. Then I chose to limit my search to images. 931 pictures came up that had something to do with that sport.

When I searched for "George Lucas" of Star Wars fame using Basic Search, the results included the biography of Lucas on this database, photos, NPR and other radio recordings about him and his cinematic work, mentions of Lucas in the news, magazines, and academic journals, and biographies of him published in other formats. I could filter my results by date published or the title of the publication.

You can also do Advanced Searches. For example, I searched for references to "astronauts" AND "Apollo", published by "Times Publishing Company". Twenty-one items were returned.

Looking for someone not mentioned above?
Gale Biography In Context has entries for 50 Cent, Benjamin Netanyahu, ABBA, George VI of England, Whoopi Goldberg, Alvin Ailey, Ben Affleck, Temple Grandin, Al Pacino, Johnny Appleseed, Dolly Parton, Edith Piaf, the Beastie Boys, Pope Benedict, Saul Bellow, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Aly Raisman, Bono, Jay-Z, Oliver Sacks, Carl Jung, Lao Tsu, and thousands of others.

So what did Beulah Louise Henry invent? Henry, who lived from 1887 to 1973, held 49 patents. Her first invention was made when she was 9 years old and she received her first patent at age 25. It was for a vacuum ice cream freezer. Over her lifetime she also turned her prolific mind to improvements in toys, umbrellas, sewing machines, typewriters, can openers, and valves. Read more about her in Gage Biography in Context!