​What's the difference between reference/biographical information and scholarly articles?
While these sources are different, one is not inherently "better" than the other. When taken together, they provide a more complete understanding of a topic than if taken alone.
The following library databases, which are all available on the Reference section of the library website, offer biographical and reference information:
American Indian Experience The American Indian Experience offers access to an online library, featuring more than 150 volumes of scholarship and reference content, hundreds of primary documents, and thousands of images. From Pre-contact to the present day, from the Inuit of the north to the Seminoles of Florida, AIE is meant for anyone wishing to learn more about America's Native Peoples.
Searching Tip: Click on "Advanced Search," and then check the box next to "Biographies" under "General Resources."
Credo Reference A digital reference library containing hundreds of high-quality reference books from the world's leading publishers. Credo offers access to millions of individual entries and contains all types of reference books including dictionaries, encyclopedias, thesauri, books of quotations and atlases.
American National Biography Online The landmark American National Biography offers portraits of more than 18,700 men and women from all eras and walks of life whose lives have shaped the nation.
Biography in Context Combines Gale biographies with related full-text articles from magazines and newspapers, thousands of images, and links to vetted websites. Search for current or historic figures based on name, occupation, nationality, ethnicity, birth/death dates and places, or gender, as well as keyword and full text.
To locate articles analyzing your figure's life and legacy, you may want to explore these databases:
America: History & Life Covering the history and culture of the United States and Canada, from prehistory to the present. With selective indexing for 1,700 journals from 1964 to present.
Ethnic Newswatch News, culture, and history from over 240 publications of the ethnic, minority, and native press. Both English and Spanish search interfaces are available.
JSTOR offers a high-quality, interdisciplinary archive to support scholarship and teaching. It includes archives of over one thousand leading academic journals across the humanities, social sciences, and sciences, as well as select monographs and other materials valuable for academic work. The entire corpus is full-text searchable, offers search term highlighting, includes high-quality images, and is interlinked by millions of citations and references.
Searching Tip: Click on "Advanced Search," then filter by discipline(s), such as American Indian Studies.