Australian Dictionary of 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.

The ADB project has been operating since 1957 with staff located at the Australian Dictionary of Biographic (ADB), Research School of Social Sciences at the Australian National University. Since its inception, 4000 authors have contributed to the ADB and its published volumes contain 9,800 scholarly articles on 10,700 individuals.

Volumes
To date, the ADB has produced eighteen volumes of biographical articles on important and representative figures in Australian history, published by Melbourne University Publishing.


 * Volumes 1 and 2 (published in 1966-67) covered subjects who lived in the period 1788-1850
 * Volumes 3 to 6 (published in 1969-76) dealt with the period 1851-1890
 * Volumes 7 to 12 (published in 1979-90) dealt with the period 1891-1939
 * Volumes 13 to 16 (published in 1993-2002) dealt with the period 1940-1980
 * Volumes 17 (published in 2007) dealt with those who died between 1981 and 1990 with surnames beginning with A to K.
 * Volume 18 will cover people who died between 1981 and 1990 with surnames beginning with L to Z.
 * A Supplementary volume of Australians not covered by the original volumes was released in 2005.
 * An index to volumes 1 to 12 was published in 1991.

In addition to publishing these works, the ADB makes its primary research material available to the academic community and the public.

Online
On 6 July 2006, 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 2006. The ADB Online is operated by the Australian Dictionary of Biography (ADB), Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University. The website is a joint production of the ADB and the Australian Science and Technology Heritage Centre, University of Melbourne (Austehc).

The ADB project should not be confused with the much smaller and older Dictionary of Australian Biography by Percival Serle first published in 1949, nor with the even older German Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie which is also referred to as ADB in English sources.