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A Who's Who (or Who Is Who) is a
reference work A reference work is a document, such as a Academic publishing#Scholarly paper, paper, book or periodical literature, periodical (or their electronic publishing, electronic equivalents), to which one can refer for information. The information ...
consisting of biographical entries of notable people in a particular field. The oldest and best-known is the annual publication ''
Who's Who A Who's Who (or Who Is Who) is a reference work consisting of biographical entries of notable people in a particular field. The oldest and best-known is the annual publication ''Who's Who (UK), Who's Who'', a reference work on contemporary promin ...
'', a reference work on contemporary prominent people in Britain published annually since 1849.


Notable examples by country

* ''
Who's Who A Who's Who (or Who Is Who) is a reference work consisting of biographical entries of notable people in a particular field. The oldest and best-known is the annual publication ''Who's Who (UK), Who's Who'', a reference work on contemporary promin ...
'', the oldest listing of prominent British people since 1849; people who have died since 1897 are listed in ''Who Was Who'' * '' Cambridge Who's Who'' (also known as ''Worldwide Who's Who''), a vanity publisher based in Uniondale, New York * '' Marquis Who's Who'', a series of books published since 1899 by Marquis, primarily listing prominent American people, but including ''Who's Who in the World'' * '' Who's Who in New Zealand'', twelve editions published at irregular intervals between 1908 and 1991 * '' Canadian Who's Who'', a listing of prominent Canadians since 1910 * ''Who's Who in Switzerland'', published from 1953 to 1996 and then ''Swiss Who's Who'', a listing of prominent Swiss or leading figures living in
Switzerland Switzerland, officially the Swiss Confederation, is a landlocked country located in west-central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the south, France to the west, Germany to the north, and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east. Switzerland ...
since 2015 * ''
Who's Who in Australia The pronoun ''who'', in English language, English, is an English interrogative words, interrogative pronoun and a English relative words, relative pronoun, used primarily to refer to persons. Unmarked, ''who'' is the pronoun's subjective form; ...
'', a listing of prominent Australians since 1923 * ''
Who's Who in France The pronoun ''who'', in English, is an interrogative pronoun and a relative pronoun, used primarily to refer to persons. Unmarked, ''who'' is the pronoun's subjective form; its inflected forms are the objective ''whom'' and the possessive ...
'', a listing of prominent French or people living in France since 1953 * '' Who's Who in Scotland'', a listing of prominent Scots since 1986 * ''Who's Who'', by Metron Publications, a listing of prominent Greeks since 1992 * '' Who's Who of Southern Africa'', published in paper form until 2007 when it was replaced by a website


Non-English publications

Some ''Who's Who'' books have a title in the language of the country concerned: * Croatian: '' Tko je tko u Hrvatskoj'', bilingual edition (1993) * Danish: '' Kraks Blå Bog'' (since 1910) annually * Finnish: '' Kuka kukin on'' (since 1909) at first irregularly, every fourth year since 1970 * German:'' Wer ist's?'' (1905–1935) and ' (since 1951) almost annually * German: for East Germany: ' * Japanese: '' Nihon Tarento Meikan'' (Talent Who's Who in Japan), a listing of Japanese celebrities, or '' tarentos'', since 1970 * Lithuanian: ' (Who's Who in Lithuania), a listing of prominent Lithuanians and business companies since 1995. * Norwegian:'' Hvem er Hvem?'' (since 1912) 14 editions in the 20th century * Serbian:'' Koje ko u Serbiji'', (1991), previously ''Koje ko u Jugoslaviji'' * Swedish:'' Vem är det'' (since 1912) every second year


Specialized publications

* '' International Who's Who'' by Europa Publications, a Taylor and Francis imprint * '' Who's Who Among American High School Students'' listing what it deems to be American high school and college students who particularly excel in the realm of academic achievement. The publishing company closed in 2007. * '' Who's Who in American Art'', a listing of prominent American artists * '' Who's Who in British History'' * '' Who's Who in the CIA'', a book published in
East Berlin East Berlin (; ) was the partially recognised capital city, capital of East Germany (GDR) from 1949 to 1990. From 1945, it was the Allied occupation zones in Germany, Soviet occupation sector of Berlin. The American, British, and French se ...
in 1968 with the assistance of the
KGB The Committee for State Security (, ), abbreviated as KGB (, ; ) was the main security agency of the Soviet Union from 1954 to 1991. It was the direct successor of preceding Soviet secret police agencies including the Cheka, Joint State Polit ...
and the HVA purporting to reveal the identities of thousands of CIA officers. * '' Who's Who in the DC Universe'' a listing of
DC Comics DC Comics (originally DC Comics, Inc., and also known simply as DC) is an American comic book publisher owned by DC Entertainment, a subsidiary of Warner Bros. Discovery. DC is an initialism for "Detective Comics", an American comic book seri ...
characters * '' Who's Who in the Theatre'', published in Britain and the US from 1912 to 1982


Other publications and scams

The title "''Who's Who''" is in the public domain, and thousands of ''Who's Who'' compilations of varying scope and quality (and similar publications without the words "Who's Who") have been published by various authors and publishers. Some publications have been described as
scam A scam, or a confidence trick, is an attempt to defraud a person or group after first gaining their Trust (emotion), trust. Confidence tricks exploit victims using a combination of the victim's credulity, naivety, compassion, vanity, confidence ...
s; they list any people likely to buy the book, or to pay for inclusion, with no criterion of genuine notability. They may offer vanity awards or expensive trophies. One example is the defunct '' Who's Who Among American High School Students'', which was criticized for questionable nomination practices, as well as whether the listing's entries are fact-checked and accurate. According to Steve Bjork, an admissions vice president of Hamline University: "It's honestly something that an admissions officer typically wouldn't consider or wouldn't play into an admissions decision." He suggested that ''Who's Who'' was "just trying to sell books". ''Who's Who'' publications are not all of questionable value, but publishers that select truly notable people and provide trustworthy information on them are hard to identify. A & C Black's ''Who's Who'' is the canonical example of a legitimate ''Who's Who'' reference work, being the first to use the name and establish the approach in print, publishing annually since 1849. However, the longevity of a publication is not in itself a guarantee. In 1999, Tucker Carlson said in ''Forbes'' magazine that Marquis Who's Who, founded in 1898 but no longer an independent company, had adopted practices of address harvesting as a revenue stream, undermining its claim to legitimacy as a reference work listing people of merit. A 2005 ''
New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...
'' article observed that the entries in Marquis Who's Who were "not uniformly fact-checked".


See also

*
Biographical dictionary A biographical dictionary is a type of encyclopedic dictionary limited to biographical information. Many attempt to cover the major personalities of a country (with limitations, such as living persons only, in ''Who's Who'', or deceased people o ...
* '' Hinterland Who's Who'', a series of 60-second public service ads profiling Canadian animals and birds, produced by Environment Canada in the 1960s * '' Kdo byl kdo'' (Czech: "Who was who?")


References


External links

{{Authority control Lists of books by type Biographical dictionaries