Who's Who And What's What

The Marquis Who's Who is now available online at http://search.marquiswhoswho.com . This database contains over a million profiles, with more added daily. It's a paid service.

Once you've logged in, you'll have the option to search the database by last name and first name. And advanced search page allows you to search by many other variables, including state, occupation, gender, age, political affiliation, religion, or general keyword.

I logged in using Opera and searched for Mae Jemison, first African American woman in space. I didn't get any results, which struck me as odd. I tried searching for her a couple of different ways and got no results. I thought, "Okay," and searched for Tim Conway. I got no results for him either. It struck me as unlikely that Marquis Who's Who would be missing Tim Conway and Mae Jemison, so I logged out of Opera and checked into Marquis again using IE.

A search for Mae Jemison found results in IE (as did a search for Tim Conway.) search results include a list of the matching names, year of birth, occupation, city, state, and country. Click on the name and you'll get additional information about the person, including education, career, creative works, memberships, family, and address. Not all information is available for all people -- Tim O'Reilly's entry is very short, for example, while Peter Drucker's was more extensive. Deceased people are listed in the database; their information is in red, with a death date provided.

The database was easy to use and there was plenty of information provided. My only complaint is that the search engine isn't very smart. I was aghast that Tom Lehrer wasn't listed in the database, until I realized that Thomas Lehrer would probably find him (it did.) And who's going to remember that Art Linkletter's full name is Arthur Linkletter? Marquis Who's Who on the Web costs $995 a year (single-user pricing). For ordering information or contact information for multiple-user pricing, check out http://www.marquiswhoswho.com/products/ordering.asp .

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