To be entirely honest, I am not exactly sure how I’ve managed to successfully make it to third year without having used my subject guide, or truthfully, knowing it exists. This is probably due to the number of times I’ve gone straight to Library Search or Google Scholar when looking for resources to help with me along with my essays. The university library provides access to a guide for each subject of study at university. Within the guide you can find a variety of resources to help you along with your readings, research and further study. Within these subject guides are a plethora of resources to utilize, which are specifically tailored to the course you are studying. Every field of study has a subject guide, which can easily be accessed by going on to the university library page and clicking on Resources for your Subject Guide (who would have thought it was so easy).
When looking through the resources on the Geography subject guide, there was one particular resource in which I was familiar, and that was Web of Science. Web of Science is quite similar to Google Scholar, however it is more targeted to the subject you are searching and gives you a somewhat better range of results when looking for articles in journals which can help you sift through the results that are slightly less relevant to what you may be researching.
What I did also come across whilst exploring the subject guides were some of the video resources available. Resources such as Kanopy – which is an on-demand streaming video service for educational institutions that provides access to more than 26,000 films – are really interesting if you are looking for grey data or documentaries and just want to expand your mind on a topic without having to spend all of your time reading. It would also be good for study breaks; there are thousands of independent films that you could use to get away from the depth of studying and relax a little.
Looking at the subject guide for geography as a whole, I think it is likely to be very useful for particular modules where resources may be a little more difficult to find. And is very likely to be useful when looking for information on studies within Africa or Gender Studies as such, however the modules I take are more focused towards climate and development, so Web of Science tends to deliver what I need, which may be the reason I had never discovered the subject guide until now.
I think all in all I would use the subject guide to help me if I could not find the information I needed from the resources I already use, then I would look within the subject guide for further assistance.
-Andre
Have you used the resources in your Subject Guide? Let us know below!