The American National Biography (ANB) is the successor to The Dictionary of American Biography (DAB)(1926-1937). As such, it is a source of biographical information on Americans of significance, both American and significance broadly defined. The one fast rule for inclusion is that the person must have died before 1996.

Containing 3.2 million. short biographical entries for eminent individuals who lived in North and South America, Western and Central Europe, Africa, Australia, New Zealand, and Oceania. The entry for each person contains the name, variations of the name, pseudonymes, the years of birth and death or years mentioned, occupation, source quoted (archive, fiche-no and page) and bibliographic information about the sources used. The microfiche editions of the archives containing the complete texts of the biographical entries are in the Van Pelt Microforms Department.

Biographical information, overviews, full-text literary criticism and reviews on nearly 130,000 writers in all disciplines, from all time periods and from around the world.
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Gale's Literary Index is a master index to the major literature series published by The Gale Group. It combines and cross references more than 130,000 author names, including pseudonyms and variant names, and more than 140,000 titles into one source.