Finding Biographical Information

Who's whos, together with obituaries, are often the best source for persons of a more transitory prominence than those included in biographical dictionaries. The succession of various who’s whos are valuable time slices of the past.

Who's Whos in the strict sense:

• include brief biographical data with address information and professional histories
• usually have a necrology section listing deaths for the year
• tend to be much more inclusive than the biographical dictionaries, though some confine themselves to prominent figures.
• both general and medical who's whos exist on international, national and local levels
• entries are often researched and written by the subject. (If a writer or editor did this work, it's usually noted in the introduction.)
• originated with the British Who’s Who which started in 1849

Example: Who's Who in the Media and Communications 1998-99  Internet Archive Full Text 

They may be searched by title, but not all who’s who type publications use the term Who's Who. (Who's Important in Medicine).  They can be hard to find in HOLLIS and WorldCat, because several terms are used as Subject terms:

Economists -- Biography -- Dictionaries
Great Britain -- Biography -- Periodicals.
Artists -- Brazil -- Directories
China -- Officials and employees -- Registers

And sometimes just Pakistan -- Biography which mixes them with numerous single-person biographies

They are listed under Contemporary for each country in the geographical pages of this guide.