In addition to being important historical sources, memoirs also often provide a wealth of biographical information not only on the memoirist himself, but also on his family, friends, and acquaintances. Memoirs can be found by searching the major bibliographic utilities such as OCLC and RLIN, or by searching other sources of monographic citations. The Russians, however, have compiled several very unique sources which gives access to the published memoirs and diaries and partial access to their contents. There is even a Russian source describing memoir material in manuscript form. The Poles also have compiled extensive memoir bibliographies.
Some of the memoir resources cover travel literature as well because travel writers often wrote about the people they met in addition to the places they visited. For this reason the two have been combined into one section.