Geomatics Library Guide: JOURNALS & MORE

UCT Libraries subscribes to a large number of journals. To find journals, use PRIMO. (You can also access Primo from the library's website.) For the best results conduct a "Journal Search".

Please ask for assistance if you cannot find a journal you are looking for.

What is a journal?

A journal is like an academic magazine where scholars have written articles about their research.

What is the difference between a book and a journal article?

A book is a longer, and a usually more comprehensive text on a subject.

Journal articles are shorter, and more specific. They are published more frequently and so have more up-to-date information than books do.

Why use journals?

• They are usually more up to date than books.
• As most of them have been checked by other academics (i.e. peer reviewed), they are more reliable than general web articles and newspaper articles.
• They are shorter to read than books.

Reference books include dictionaries, encyclopaedias, directories, etc. An encyclopaedia is a reference work containing articles on various topics (often arranged in alphabetical order) dealing with the entire range of human knowledge or with some particular specialty.

These are shelved at the end of the book sequence, and can be consulted in the library only.

Geomatics reference books held at the Main Library and have an R prefix.

You may also access our electronic reference collection to help you find information on a particular topic.