Guide to American Medical Biography

On this page: Access to Restricted Online Materials -- Print Only Materials -- About Libraries

Introduction: Where possible, we've linked directly to a publicly available version of the work. If we don't have a link to free online full text, it's often worth checking the digital libraries. These contain the full text of many works in the public domain, plus US government documents. They also enable full text search.

If the desired work isn't linked or found in the digital libraries, read on!

Online subscription only: unfortunately, this includes many of the most helpful online resources. They're designated in the guide as: (Institutional login).

• These include both sources (books, journals, articles etc.) and tools (mechanisms for getting at sources, like databases produced by publishers and vendors).
• Access them through a library local to you. 
• In many cases you can purchase access to individual items online or obtain an individual membership (ex: Ancestry.com; NewspaperARCHIVE; Newspapers.com) -- but check with your library first!

Publications we believe to be print-only will be designated (Print) in the guide with a link to a WorldCat record. Everything hasn't been digitized (and never will be) and you may be able to find print copies of digitized material you're unable to access freely otherwise.​ 

• It can be worthwhile to double-check, especially for publications in the public domain. 
  • Search a catalog or search engine. Experiment with mixing title and author words. 
    • Experiment with search engines: DuckDuckGo, for instance, often has very different search results from Google.
• Try the online resources of a library with which you are affiliated.

   

  To find print materials:

  • See About Libraries 
  • Try an online bookselling aggregator like Alibris (has listings for both online and brick-and-mortar booksellers large and small).
  • Try WorldCat, the librarian's go-to for locating material in US and many international libraries. More about WorldCat.
  • How to know whether or not a print publication is worth pursuing? 
    • ​Contemporary reviews of a work can give more information. These usually come up if you search something like HOLLIS (Harvard's catalog and discovery tool) by the title of the item in question. Note: these reviews may be in subscription publications.
    • Full text searches in the digital libraries can give you an idea of how much of your desired content exists in a given publication. 

You may be able to access electronic resources and/or print-only works at a library with which you are affiliated.

• Institutional subscriptions are usually accessed through the web pages of subscribing institutions rather than with username and password on the site's main page. Check with the library if you're not familiar with how to access online materials. 
• Your library doesn't have online access the work in question?
  • They may be able to obtain materials or sections thereof for you via Interlibrary Loan. To use ILL, consult your library for their request procedures.
• Libraries you may have access to include academic, professional, and public. 
• Public libraries often provide genealogical assistance or resources.