Biog  Biography

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Definition

Whether the item is biographical.

Guidelines

The following types of material are biographical:

• Straightforward accounts of the life of a person's character thought and activities.
• Accounts of limited periods or aspects of the life of a person (e.g., Goethe as a government official). Collections of materials that serve as a source of or substitute for an account of a life. These include: (1) collections of correspondence unless they clearly relate to a particular subject or to an event not in the life of the writer (2) journals and diaries and (3) memoirs or reminiscences. Collective biographies.
• Literary criticism if more than half of the work is biographical.
• A work about a ruler and his or her reign if the ruler's life is given considerable attention.
• A work about a doctrine or movement if the work is largely biographical.

The following are not biographical:

• Documents relating to a person's life (birth, marriage and death certificates, commissions, diplomas, etc.). Obituaries, funeral orations, eulogies.
• Collections of portraits unless accompanied by substantial biographical description.
• Interviews and conversations.
• Bio-bibliographies.
• Genealogy.
• A vita within a work does not qualify the work as biographical. However, a biographical work may have a vita.

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