The ''Australian Dictionary of Biography'' (ADB or AuDB) is a national co-operative enterprise founded and maintained by the

Australian National University The Australian National University (ANU) is a public research university located in Canberra, the capital of Australia. Its main campus in Acton encompasses seven teaching and research colleges, in addition to several national academies and ...

(ANU) to produce authoritative biographical articles on eminent people in

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

history History (derived ) is the systematic study and the documentation of the human activity. The time period of event before the History of writing#Inventions of writing, invention of writing systems is considered prehistory. "History" is an umbr ...

. Initially published in a series of twelve hard-copy volumes between 1966 and 2005, the dictionary has been published online since 2006 by the National Centre of Biography at ANU, which has also published ''Obituaries Australia'' (OA) since 2010.

History

The ADB project has been operating since 1957. 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, 4,000 authors have contributed to the ADB and its published volumes contain 9,800 scholarly articles on 12,000 individuals. 210 of these are of Indigenous Australians, which has been explained by

Bill Stanner William Edward Hanley Stanner Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George, CMG (24 November 19058 October 1981), often cited as W.E.H. Stanner, was an Australian anthropology, anthropologist who worked extensively with Indigenous Australi ...

's "cult of forgetfulness" theory around the contributions of Indigenous Australians to Australian society.

Similar titles

The ADB project should not be confused with the much smaller and older ''

Dictionary of Australian Biography The ''Dictionary of Australian Biography'', published in 1949, is a reference work by Percival Serle containing information on notable people associated with Australian history. With approximately a thousand entries, the book took more than ...

'' by

Percival Serle Percival Serle (18 July 1871 – 16 December 1951) was an Australian biographer and bibliographer. Early life Serle was born in Elsternwick, Victoria to English parents who had migrated as children and for many years worked in a life assurance ...

, first published in 1949, nor with the German '' Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie'' (published 1875–1912) which may also be referred to as ADB in English sources. Another similar Australian title from an earlier era was

Philip Mennell Philip Dearman Mennell , (10 March 1851 – 19 October 1905) was an English-born encyclopaedist, journalist and newspaper owner, active in Australia, author of the ''Dictionary of Australasian Biography'' (1892). Early life Mennell was born in N ...

's ''

Dictionary of Australasian Biography ''The Dictionary of Australasian Biography'', sub-titled ''"Comprising Notices of Eminent Colonists From the Inauguration of Responsible Government Down to the Present Time."'' published in 1892, is a reference work by Philip Mennell containing in ...

'' (1892).

General editors

Since the project began there have been six general editors , namely: * Douglas Pike (1962–1974) * Bede Nairn (1974–1984) * Geoff Serle (1975–1987) * John Ritchie (1988–2002) * Diane Langmore (2001–2008) * Melanie Nolan (2008– )

Publications

Hardcopy volumes

To date, the ADB has produced eighteen

hardcopy Digital News was a trade publication that focused on products from Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC). History They published independently from 1986 thru 1992. At that point, they were acquired and merged with '' Digital Review'' with the new ...

volumes of biographical articles on important and representative figures in

Australian history The history of Australia is the story of the land and peoples of the continent of Australia. Aboriginal Australians, People first arrived on the Australian mainland by sea from Maritime Southeast Asia between 50,000 and 65,000 years ago, and ...

, 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.

Online publication

On 6 July 2006, the Australian Dictionary of Biography Online was launched by

Michael Jeffery Major General Philip Michael Jeffery, (12 December 1937 – 18 December 2020) was a senior Australian Army officer and vice-regal representative. He was the 28th governor of Western Australia from 1993 to 2000, and the 24th governor-general o ...

Governor-General of Australia The governor-general of Australia is the representative of the monarch, currently King Charles III, in Australia.Australian Science and Technology Heritage Centre The Australian Science and Technology Heritage Centre (Austehc), lasted from 1999 to 2006, was a non-profit organisation that received the majority of its funding from collaborative works with the government and industry groups. Austehc was a part ...

University of Melbourne The University of Melbourne is a public research university located in Melbourne, Australia. Founded in 1853, it is Australia's second oldest university and the oldest in Victoria. Its main campus is located in Parkville, an inner suburb nor ...

(Austehc).

''Obituaries Australia''

''Obituaries Australia'' (OA), a digital repository of digital obituaries about significant Australians, went live in August 2010, 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 The fully searchable database also links the obituaries to important digitised records such as war service records,

ASIO ''Asio'' is a genus of typical owls, or true owls, in the family Strigidae. This group has representatives over most of the planet, and the short-eared owl is one of the most widespread of all bird species, breeding in Europe, Asia, North and ...

files and

oral history Oral history is the collection and study of historical information about individuals, families, important events, or everyday life using audiotapes, videotapes, or transcriptions of planned interviews. These interviews are conducted with people wh ...

interviews, in libraries, archives and museums. and will link to a search on the name in

Trove Trove is an Australian online library database owned by the National Library of Australia in which it holds partnerships with source providers National and State Libraries Australia, an aggregator and service which includes full text documen ...

, the

National Library of Australia The National Library of Australia (NLA), formerly the Commonwealth National Library and Commonwealth Parliament Library, is the largest reference library in Australia, responsible under the terms of the ''National Library Act 1960'' for "mainta ...

's database of newspapers, library catalogue holdings, government gazettes and other material. 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.

Criticism

In 2018,

Clinton Fernandes Clinton Fernandes (born 1971) is a professor of international studies, international and political scientist, political studies at the University of New South Wales in Canberra, Australia, part of the Australian Defence Force Academy. His work ...

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 George Fife Angas (1 May 1789 – 15 May 1879) was an English businessman and banker who, while residing in England, played a significant part in the formation and establishment of the Province of South Australia. He established the South Aus ...

, 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 Godfrey Downes Carter (1830 – 29 April 1902) was an Australian businessman, politician and mayor of Melbourne from 1884 to 1885. Born in Jamaica the son of a slaveholder, Carter was educated in England, and migrated to Australia in 1853. He ...

. However, the Legacies database from which Fernandes obtains this information is ambiguous as to Angas's connection with slavery. It states that he did not lodge the claims himself but collected the compensatory amount for unknown reasons. The original entries were written in the 1960s, and some are awaiting updating.

References

External links

* * {{Authority control Australian biographical dictionaries Melbourne University Publishing books Publications established in 1966