Let us know who you are
Feedback
We want to hear from you!
Introduction
Geography can loosely be defined as the study of all environmental and human phenomena at individual places, and the spatial relationship between them. Generally, the discipline is divided into two main branches namely physical geography and human geography. Physical geography studies the characteristics of the natural environment focusing on topics such as weather, climate and landforms. Human geography, on the other hand, examines human societies and their activities such as culture, economics, political systems and history.
Geographers deploy different analytical approaches to explain, predict and prescribe their findings. The three most common analytical methods used by contemporary geographers are area analysis, spatial analysis and geographic systems analysis. Area analysis is an approach that looks at features of Earth’s surface such as climate, soil type, language or economic activity in a regional context. Spatial analysis, meanwhile, studies the spatial distribution (density, concentration and geometric pattern) and movement (distance and diffusion) of an environmental or a human phenomenon across Earth’s surface. As for geographic systems analysis, it is an approach that studies how Earth’s physical environment influences human actions.
However, before geographers conduct their analysis, they have to first collect the necessary geographic information. To facilitate this process, geographers employ various data collection methodologies ranging from models and theories to traditional tools such as maps, surveys and fieldwork. They also utilise new technologies such as Global Positioning Systems, Geographic Information Systems and remote sensing.
To disseminate the knowledge they produced, geographers usually published their findings in academic journals, popular periodicals or compile them into books. They also produced maps or atlases to illustrate their research results. Some geographers choose to disseminate their research results through tradition popular media such as television and radio or online communication tools such as blogs or websites. This guide is designed to be an easy introduction to highlight resources that are related to Geography in our libraries as well as on the Internet. As the guide is not intended to be comprehensive, interested readers should search the NLB catalogue or the Internet for more resources.
Editorial Notes
Books and texts are often mainstays of resource guides as these provide introductory and comprehensive information on a particular topic. In the creation of this libguide however, effort was also made to recommend resources that are highly accessible, such as, ebooks, journal and newpaper articles, authoritative websites, among others. Please find below a brief write-up of the resource formats, as well as, how to access them.
- Print materials from
both the Lee Kong Chian Reference Library, as well as, NLB's Public
Libraries. Just click on the given links to activate NLB's online
catalogue showing availability of the items. Apart for the reference books at the Lee Kong Chian Reference Library, books recommended in this guide can be reserved online and brought to the library branch of your choice for a small fee of $1.55 (just click on "Reserve this item").
- Journal articles from
the library's eResources service (http://eresources.nlb.gov.sg). Most
of the recommended journal articles are from Proquest
Central and JSTOR as these databases are accessible from home. Just click on the given links to be brought to the relevant section of the eResources site. Thereafter, register (if you are new to the service) or log-in >> click on the relevant database (e.g.,
JSTOR, Proquest Central) >> conduct a search using the article's title.
- Newspaper articles from the Factiva database, as well as, the NewspaperSG database. Factiva is available via our eResources service and articles within can be accessed in the same manner as that for journal articles (described above). Newspapers from NewspaperSG can be accessed via (http://newspapers.nl.sg). Articles from 1831 - 1989 can be accessed from home (direct links to the articles are provided) while those after 1989 can only be accessed onsite at the libraries.
- Embedded videos. A picture speaks thousand words, what more a video? Click the play button on the embedded videos (from reputable sources) for some visual learning.
- Web resources. Relevant websites on the topic, as well as, journal articles accessible via the web.
This guide highlights items in the collection, and is thus not intended to be comprehensive. Interested readers should search the NLB catalogue for more works.
Librarians
Lim Tin Seng, Sara Pek, Irene Lim, Damien Wang
Contact Info:
National Library Singapore
100 Victoria Street
#07-01 National Library Building
Singapore 188064
Share your links
If you know of any interesting resource not featured in this guide, please share with us! It's easy, just click below :)
Submit
Loading...
