Course resource help for Geography

Databases can help you to search for useful journal articles and other publications in your subject area. 

You can use LibrarySearch to find journal articles, but a database may give you additional, useful results. Databases also allow you to be really specific about what you want.

Some of the databases listed below provide abstracts (summaries), whole others are full text (they contain complete articles). Learn more about using LibrarySearch to find a database (PDF). The databases listed below are available to all Brookes staff and students both on and off campus. 

If you want any help with using databases you can ask at the JHB library Help Zone or contact the Academic Liaison Librarian for Geography.

Web of Science

This database helps you access a wide range of key journals for all aspects of geography. This database is particularly useful for physical and environmental geography.

Science Direct

Contains around 2500 full text journals published by Elsevier, mainly in science, technology and medicine. Full text coverage for most journals in the collection is available from 2002 to present.

Academic Search Complete

A large multidisciplinary database, containing lots of full text articles. This database is particularly useful for human geography.

Sage Journals

This database contains journals published by Sage, covering a wide range of subjects within the social sciences, humanities and life sciences.

IBSS - International Bibliography of the Social Sciences

IBSS covers a wide range of social science disciplines, and is useful for social or human geography research.

JSTOR

This database provides an archive of full-text articles from a wide range of academic journals. JSTOR does not give access to issues which are less than 3-5 years old but is very useful for older journal articles

Sociological Abstracts

Sociological Abstracts covers a broad range of subjects including aspects of human and social geography. It contains journal information with abstracts so if a result looks useful you'll need to find the full-text of the article elsewhere.

Zetoc: electronic table of contents from the British Library

This database covers about 20,000 current journals and conference proceedings in science, technology, medicine, engineering, business, law, finance and the humanities. It covers material published since 1993 and is updated daily.

Academic journals are key sources for your geography studies. They publish articles written by specialists in the field and provide an insight into current thinking, debate and research. They can also cover a specific topic in depth, e.g. a case study.

 This guide from the Open University (PDF) explains clearly what a journal is, and how they differ from books. An important thing to note is that new issues are regularly published, and that all the issues from one year are known as a volume.  

One reason journal articles are so highly valued is peer review. Find out more about peer review and how it works.

To find useful journal articles you can:

• See which ones are recommended by your module leaders

• Look in LibrarySearch

• Use a database

LibrarySearch lets you search for books, ebooks and more. You can search for a specific book or search for a topic or theme. 

Welcome to LibrarySearch: This short video will help you get started with LibrarySearch.

The following two guides show you how to find books and ebooks on LibrarySearch:

• Using LibrarySearch to find a book or ebook when you know the title and author (PDF)

• Using LibrarySearch to find a book or ebook on a specific subject (PDF)

You can use LibrarySearch to see what books the library has, and where they are shelved. You can also  download a library floorplan.

See a list of new geography books and ebooks in the library.

Your online reading lists are the quickest way to find what you need to read for your modules.

Search for the module number or module name on the reading list page. You can also find the reading list on the right hand side of any module on Moodle. 

You won't always be expected to read everything on your reading list for each week's topic. Look to see if some items are marked as ‘essential’ and focus on them. You can follow up with things labelled as ‘recommended’ or 'optional' if you choose. 

If you're unclear what reading to prioritise, ask your module leader or seminar leader. To keep track of your progress, you can use the reading intentions options down the right hand side of the reading list and mark items as 'to read' 'have read' etc.

To learn more about how to find different types of news resources (from the UK and beyond), have a look at our news sources page.