Australian dictionary of biography index
Australian Dictionary of Biography
Not to be confused with Dictionary of Australian Biography.
The Australian Dictionary of Biography (ADB or AuDB) is a national co-operative enterprise founded and maintained by the Australian National University (ANU) to produce authoritative biographical articles on eminent people in Australia's history. Initially published by Melbourne University Press in a series of twelve hard-copy volumes between and , the dictionary has been published online since by the National Centre of Biography at ANU, which has also published Obituaries Australia (OA) since
History
The ADB project has been operating since ,[1] although preparation work had been made since about in the Australian National University. An index was formed that would be the ADB's basis. Pat Wardle was involved in this work and in time she too was in the ADB.[2] Staff are located at the National Centre of Biography in the History Department of the Research School of Social Sciences at the Australian National University. Since its inception, 4, authors have contributed to the ADB and its published volumes contain 9, scholarly articles on 12, individuals.[1] Only of these are Indigenous, an imbalance which can be equated with what the anthropologist Bill Stanner calls the white “cult of forgetfulness" about Indigenous achievements.[3]
Similar titles
The ADB project should not be confused with the much smaller and older Dictionary of Australian Biography by Percival Serle, first published in , nor with the German Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (published –) which may also be referred to as ADB in English sources.[4] Another similar Australian title from an earlier era was Philip Mennell's Dictionary of Australasian Biography ().
General editors
Since the project began there have been six general editors as of [update], namely:[5]
Publications
Hardcopy volumes
To date, the ADB has produced 19 hardcopy volumes of biographical articles on important and representative figures in Australian history, published by Melbourne University Press. In addition to publishing these works, the ADB makes its primary research material available to the academic community and the public.
| Volume(s) | Years published | Subjects covered |
|---|---|---|
| 1 and 2 | –67 | Covered those Australians who lived in the period – |
| 3 to 6 | –76 | Covered those Australians who lived in the period – |
| 7 to 12 | –90 | Covered those Australians who lived in the period – |
| 13 to 16 | – | Covered those Australians who lived in the period – |
| 17 and 18 | – | Covered those Australians who died between and |
| 19 | Covered those Australians who died between and | |
| Supplement | Dealt with those Australians not covered by the original volumes | |
| Index | Index for Volumes 1 to 12 |
Biographical Register
Two supplementary volumes were published as a by-product of the first 12 volumes of the ADB. These are A Biographical Register, – Notes from the Name Index of the Australian Dictionary of Biography () in two volumes. These contain biographical notes on another 8, individuals not included in the ADB. Each entry contains brief notes on the individual concerned, gives sources, lists cross-references between entries and the ADB and there is an occupation index at the end of volume II.
Online publication
On 6 July , the Australian Dictionary of Biography Online was launched by Michael Jeffery, Governor-General of Australia, and received a Manning Clark National Cultural Award in December [6] The website is a joint production of the ADB and the Australian Science and Technology Heritage Centre, University of Melbourne (Austehc).
Citation
Obituaries Australia
Obituaries Australia (OA), a digital repository of digital obituaries about significant Australians, went live in August , after operating as an in-house database for some time, using Canberra Times journalist and deputy editor John Farquharson's obituaries for its pilot. The National Centre of Biography encouraged the public to send in scanned copies of obituaries and other biographical material.[7]
The fully searchable database also links the obituaries to important digitised records such as war service records, ASIO files and oral history interviews, in libraries, archives and museums. and will link to a search on the name in Trove, the National Library of Australia's database of newspapers, library catalogue holdings, government gazettes and other material.[7]
The database comprises obituaries about "anyone who has made a contribution to Australian life"; some have not even visited Australia but had political or business connections and interests. There are links between ADB and AO on each entry where articles exist on both databases.[8]
Criticism
Main article: Slavery in Australia
In , Clinton Fernandes wrote that ADB is conspicuously silent on the slaveholder or slave profiting pasts of a number of influential figures in the development of Australia, including George Fife Angas, Isaac Currie, Archibald Paull Burt, Charles Edward Bright, Alexander Kenneth Mackenzie, Robert Allwood, Lachlan Macquarie, Donald Charles Cameron, John Buhot, John Belisario, Alfred Langhorne, John Samuel August, and Godfrey Downes Carter.[9][10] The NCB subsequently launched its Legacies of Slavery project, which aims to expand coverage of people who had links to British slavery.[11]
See also
References
- ^ ab"About Us". Australian Dictionary of Biography. Australian National University.
- ^Clarke, Patricia, "Patience Australie (Pat) Wardle (–)", Australian Dictionary of Biography, Canberra: National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, retrieved 12 May
- ^Allbrook, Malcolm (31 October ). "Indigenous lives, the 'cult of forgetfulness' and the Australian Dictionary of Biography". The Conversation. Retrieved 20 January
- ^"Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie +ADB – Google Search". Google.
- ^"General Editors". Australian Dictionary of Biography. Archived from the original on 9 July Retrieved 4 October
- ^"Launch of Online Edition of the ADB". Archived from the original on 28 June Retrieved 9 June
- ^ ab"National Centre of Biography – ANU". Obituaries Australia. 18 May Archived from the original on 13 March Retrieved 15 November
- ^"About Us". Obituaries Australia. Australian Dictionary of Biography. Retrieved 15 November
- ^Fernandes, C. Island Off the Coast of Asia: Instruments of statecraft in Australian foreign policy (Melbourne: Monash University Publishing, ), 13–
- ^Daley, Paul (21 September ). "Colonial Australia's foundation is stained with the profits of British slavery". The Guardian. Retrieved 4 April
- ^"Legacies of Slavery". People Australia. National Centre of Biography. Retrieved 29 February