Australian Dictionary of Biography

The Australian Dictionary of Biography ( ADB or short AuDB ) is the collection of all of Australia significant and influential personalities. It contains the biographies of over 12,000 people (as of 2012), starting with politicians about bishops, artists, actors, writers, engineers to prostitutes, thieves and murderers.

This directory provides a cross section of Australian society dar. It starts at the Dutch explorer Dirk Hartog (1580-1621) and ending date with Alan Fraser Davies (1924-1987), a political scientist.

The ADB project started in 1957 at the Australian National University, since that time more than 4,500 authors have written posts. It is a multi-volume printed edition available - the biographies are also published online.

Hardcover

The hardback was published by Melbourne University Press and currently consists of the following volumes:

• Volume 1 and 2 (published 1966-67 ) describes persons who have lived in the period from 1788 to 1850
• Band 3-6 (published 1969-76 ) covers the period from 1851 to 1890
• Band 7-12 (published 1979-90 ) covers the period from 1891 to 1939
• Volume 13 to 16 ( published 1993-2002) covers the period from 1940 to 1980
• Volume 17 ( published in 2007 ) deals with persons who have died from 1981 to 1990 and whose last names begin with A to K
• Volume 18 ( published in 2012 ) deals with persons who have died from 1981 to 1990 and whose last names begin with L to Z
• An additional band with all Australians who were not treated by the original editions, published in 2005
• An index to the volumes 1 to 12 was published in 1991

Online edition

On 6 July 2006, the Australian Dictionary of Biography online edition was launched by the Governor - General of Australia Michael Jeffery. In December 2006, she was awarded the Manning Clark National Cultural Award. The ADB Online edition was developed by the Australian Science and Technology Heritage Centre, together with the Australian National University.