| Abstrakt: |
This article presents information on Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, 2004. The new work contains 54,922 lives, as opposed to the 38,607 in the old Dictionary of National Biography and supplements. Of these 1,897 died between 1991 and 2000, and the number of women has increased from 1,758 to 5,627. The introduction to the printed version includes information on the project, principles of selection, house style and so on, including a series of tabulations of lives by date. There is also a guide to the contents of articles and lists of abbreviations and references. A separate volume indexes the contributors, but there are no other indexes, just a steady progression through the alphabet from Aaron to Zuylestein. So perhaps this compilation is of limited value for the local historian as, from examination of the printed volumes, there seems no way into the places where these people lived their lives. |
