Geography

General Info

General Information

Geographers study processes and spatial distributions of the physical environment and of human activities. At UU we focus on earth system science (landforms, biogeography,etc.), urban/economic systems (transportation, urban planning, etc.) and geographic information science (GIS, remote sensing, mapping, etc.).

Descriptive regional studies are not now emphasized in academic geography, but since such information is useful to others a few sources are listed here.

Subject librarian Barbara Cox  | U of U  Department of Geography 

Created on 18 August 2000. Last updated on 29 August 2008.

Find Articles

Find Journal Articles

Use these indexes to find articles--and sometimes conference papers, reports, government documents, and book chapters. You usually search by subject, author, or keywords; you get a citation (author, article title, journal / source, date) and often an abstract -- a short synopsis. Most indexes try to describe everything within a discipline, no matter where it is published. No library owns every item listed; search the Marriott Library catalog by the journal name to find if we do and what the call number or URL is.

MAJOR INDEX

Geobase This resource is for University of Utah users only
(1966) 1980 - present
Most comprehensive index of geography journals worldwide; also covers major journals in geology, ecology, and international development. Abstracts, no full-text. UU owns some of the 2000 journals covered.
Geographical Abstracts (1966-1999), the printed precursor to Geobase, is shelved in the ARC.

SPECIALIZED INDEXES

If your topic is likely to be of interest to another discipline (geology, biology, economics, etc.) check its database list or research guide for more suggestions.

Web of Science This resource is for University of Utah users only
(1955) 1980 - present
Consolidated searching of Science Citation Index, Social Science Citation Index, and Arts & Humanities Citation Index, multidisciplinary databases listing articles in 8500 of the most important scholarly journals. This broad coverage makes it particularly useful for interdisciplinary topics. A distinctive feature is its ability to find articles which have cited a known article or given author in their bibliography. Very up to date. Search by topic, author, journal title, author's institution, cited author, cited work, date. Articles may be earlier if they were CITED from 1997 on - Charles Darwin is in current indexes). Some direct links to fulltext. UU owns many of the journals indexed.
Printed Science Citation Index  19552000 (Q 1 A1Z); printed Social Science Citation Index 1956-2000 H61Z .S65 .

Digital Dissertations This resource is for University of Utah users only
1861 - present
Index to doctoral dissertations (and a few masters theses), primarily from the U.S. and Canada. The complete text of post-1996 works is almost always available for download.  Additional theses are found in the Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations. Search Scirus for their full-text.

Lexis Nexis Statistical This resource is for University of Utah users only

1973- present

Governments are an excellent source of statistics. Ask at the Level One Information Desk for help with documents.

 

Cambridge Internet Database Service This resource is for University of Utah users only
dates vary by database
This interface is used by major databases for geologists, meteorologists, biologists and others. Physical geographers may find it useful to run a search against several of these databases -- the searches can be done simultaneously.

Worldcat This resource is for University of Utah users only
1000 - present
The most comprehensive list of books and other materials held by libraries worldwide.

Library Resources

Additional Library Resources

Oxford Reference OnlineThis resource is for University of Utah users only large, searchable collection of authoritative dictionaries and subject encyclopedias from Oxford University Press, e.g.: multilingual dictionaries, Dictionary of Geography, Oxford Companion to the Earth.

Columbia Earthscape This resource is for University of Utah users only
Selects, annotates and links to resources - including scholarly journals, conferences, books, and datasets- of interest to earth scientists and students. Most useful for interdisciplinary or public policy issues like climatic change. Includes full-text of some books from the National Research Council and various university presses

Columbia Gazetteer of the World G 103.5 C65 1998 General Reference, Level 3. Most comprehensive printed list of place names with short descriptions. More specialized gazetteers can be found by searching our catalog for "subject -names, geographic", e.g. Utah--names, geographic. There are several online gazetteers.

Physical geographers can find much of interest in the earth science encyclopedias in the QC 854 and QE 5 section of Science Reference, Level 4.

Map Collection
The library has over 200,000 map sheets. We receive virtually all topographic and geologic maps published by the US Geological Survey. We also have geologic maps from many state geological surveys and coverage, at the scale of at least 1:1,000,000, of most other countries. We try to have 1:250,000 topographic coverage of most land areas.
Maps are listed in the library's catalog. Keyword searching is generally the easiest way to find maps:
yellowstone and maps
geology and iceland and maps
Use the narrowest geographic term which best defines your area and then broaden the search as necessary. Berkeley > Alameda County>San Francisco metropolitan area. Map publishing is complicated; we may have coverage of an area as part of a much larger set. Don't hesitate to ask the map or science librarians (581-7533) for help.
Most maps can be checked out.

Government Documents

Federal publications are an excellent source of earth science and statistical information. Ask at the  Level One Information desk for help.

Call numbers of interest to geographers

 

Level One, Stacks

G1000-3999 Maps and atlases
QC 800- Meteorology
QE Geology
QH Natural history. Biology

Level Two, Stacks

G 1- 1000 General geography. Geographic methods. GIS. (also Tourism. Exploration)
GA Cartography
GB Physical geography. Geomorphology. Hydrology.
GE Environmental studies
GF Human ecology
HA Statistics
HB Economics. Demography
HE Transportation. Communication.
HT Urban and regional planning

 

Books can only sit on one shelf, even though they often cover several topics. Documents from the U.S. federal government are arranged by agency. Some formats, like maps or microforms, need special shelving and are housed separately. Electronic resources don’t sit on any shelf at all. All this means it is prudent to use our catalog and indexes. The serendipitous finds when browsing the stacks of a large research library can be rewarding, but it is not an efficient way to do research.

Web Resources

Web Resources

Geography About.com
Find practical sites like distance and time zone calculators, online place name finders, major map servers, descriptions of countries and states.


Geocommunity "The place for the Geographic Information Systems (GIS), CAD, Mapping, and Location-Based industry professionals, enthusiasts, and students to gather."

Oddens Bookmarks
Exhaustive list of all things cartographic

Research Help

Research Help

Finding information in the earth sciences
Extensive 13 p. guide to effective searching techniques for indexes, catalogs, Marriott Library, and WWW sources in geography, geology, and meteorology.