As an interdisciplinary field, Gerontology shares with History, Literary Cr
iticism, Psychology, Sociology, and Anthropology the use of autobiography a
s a primary research tool. In addition, Gerontology, like Counseling, Socia
l Work and Psychoanalysis, uses autobiography as a counseling technique. We
believe that autobiography also has merit in orienting older, non-traditio
nal students, and students in social work related fields, to the library an
d its resources. In this paper we describe a pilot project based on this th
eory.