World Biographical Information System (WBIS) Online This link opens in a new windowWorld Biographical Information System Online is the most comprehensive biographical database available, providing short biographical information on 4 million people with a historical coverage from the 4th century BC to the present. It contains 3.85 million digital facsimile articles from more than 3,700 reference works, including biographical information on 2.3 million people worldwide. Access to the digitized full-text articles at BYU is limited at present to America, Great Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Benelux countries (Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg), and Scandinavia.