Who's Who
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Who's Who or Who is Who is the name of a number of reference publications, generally containing concise biographical information on a particular group of people. It is also used as an expression meaning a collection or group of noted persons; as in the sentence "The actors in the film were a Who's Who of the great American comedians of the time".
The title Who's Who is in the public domain, and thousands of Who's Who compilations of varying scope and quality have been published by various authors and publishers. The oldest and most famous Who's Who is Who's Who (UK), a reference on the British upper class; at its start, in 19th century Britain, this was a smaller and more well-defined set. However, many modern copies are just vanity publications, where the inclusion criterion is the biographee's willingness to buy the book, with the business model consisting of selling books directly to the biographees. These are widely considered to be Who's Who scams.
Notable examples
- Who's Who, a listing of prominent British people since 1849; people who have died since 1897 are listed in Who Was Who
- Who's Who in Australia, a listing of prominent Australians since 1923
- Who's Who in American Art, a listing of prominent American artists
- Kraks Blå Bog, Denmark's Who's Who
- Who's Who in Europe, a listing of prominent Europeans since 1965
- Who's Who in France, a listing of prominent French or people living in France since 1953
- Who's Who in British History
- Who’s_Who_in_Nebraska
- Who's Who in Scotland, a listing of prominent Scots since 1986
- Canadian Who's Who, a listing of prominent Canadians since 1910
- Who's Who in the DC Universe a listing of DC Comics characters
- Who's Who Among American High School Students and Who's Who Among Students in American Universities & Colleges, listing what it deems to be American high school and college students who particularly excel in the realm of academic achievement
- Who's Who of Southern Africa, a resource tool of noteworthy people in Southern Africa, as well as professional networking platform Who's Who of Southern Africa
- Who's Who Online, an automated web information aggregation service
- Hinterland Who's Who, a series of 60-second public service ads profiling Canadian animals and birds, produced by Environment Canada in the 1960s
- International Who's Who by Europa Publications, a Taylor and Francis imprint
- Marquis Who's Who, a series of books published by Marquis, primarily listing prominent American people but including Who's Who in the World.
- Hübners Who Is Who, by Who is Who, Verlag für Personenenzyklopädien AG, Zürich, which has a number of national editions throughout Europe:
- one common edition for German-speaking countries (Switzerland, Austria, Liechtenstein, Germany and Luxembourg): Who is who in dem deutschen Sprachgebiet, as well as the separate national editions for
- Poland: Who is Who w Polsce - the business model consists of selling books directly to the biographees: the publication of a biography is for free for a biographee, apart from a publication of a photo by the biography, for which a biographee has to pay if he wants to have his photo published by his biography; a biographee can buy a book containing his biography for a relatively high price. See: "akwizycja prestiżu" by Kamil M. Śmiałkowski
- Czech Republic: Who is ...? (v České republice),
- Slovakia: Who is Who v Slovenskej republike,
- Hungary: Who is Who Magyarországon,
- Romania: Enciclopedia Personalităţilor din România: Who is Who,
- Greece and Cyprus: Who is Who στην Ελλάδα,
- Turkey: Türkiye’de Who is Who,
- Russia (including the other Russian-speaking country - Belarus, and Russians from the other countries of the former USSR): Who is Who в России
- Vietnam: Ai là ai,
- Yugoslavia: Ko je ko u Jugoslaviji (1970).
Similar publications
Some Who's Who books have a title in the language of the country concerned:
- Croatian: Tko je tko u Hrvatskoj - Who is Who in Croatia, single bilingual edition (1993)
- Danish: Kraks Blå Bog (since 1910) annually
- German: Wer ist's? (1905-1935) and Wer ist wer? (since 1951) almost annually
- Norwegian: Hvem er Hvem? (since 1912) 14 editions in the 20th century
- Swedish: Vem är det? (since 1912) every second year
- South Africa: Who's Who of Southern Africa (since 1910) annually