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Geography and the Environment

Find Books

Books are invaluable resources for students studying geography and the environment at Kwantlen Polytechnic University. They provide comprehensive coverage of topics, theoretical frameworks, and in-depth analyses that are essential for your academic research and understanding. Whether you are exploring urban planning, environmental management, climate studies, or other areas within geography, books can offer foundational knowledge and detailed insights.

For human geography students, books can be particularly useful for studying urban development, cultural geography, population dynamics, economic geography, and social issues. You might look for titles that cover urban planning theories, cultural landscapes, demographic trends, economic systems, and social policies.

For physical geography students, our collection includes books on climate science, geomorphology, hydrology, biogeography, and environmental management. These texts offer detailed explanations of natural processes, scientific principles, and practical applications in the field.

 

Library Summon Search

Searching the Library Catalog

You can use the library catalog to find both physical and digital books.
 
Explore our physical collection by visiting the library, where you can browse the shelves and find books that are relevant to your studies. Additionally, our digital collection is accessible online, allowing you to search for and read eBooks from anywhere.
 
Watch the video below to learn how to search the library catalog:

Navigating the Physical Collection

The location of a book is called its "Call Number". Call numbers help you locate items in the library. You will always find related books shelved together so understanding call numbers can help you find many resources on the shelves.

The call number ranges for Geography related subjects are:

G      GIS, Remote Sensing, Analytical methods, Tourism, Maps & Atlases                

GA   Cartography, Surveys

GB    Physical Geography, Geomorphology, Hydrology, Glaciology

GC    Oceanography

GE     Environmental Sciences

HB    Population Geography, Demography  

HC     Economic Geography

HE     Transportation Geography

HQ    Population

HT     Urban Geography, Cities

JC     Political Geography

QC    Climatology, Meteorology

QE    Geology

QH    Biogeography, Ecology

S       Soils, Forestry

TC- TD    Hydrology

 

Learn more about Call Numbers

Canadian Public Documents Collection

The library subscribes to the Canadian Public Documents Collection (CPDC) which contains almost 30,000 full-text, "born-digital" federal government and think tank publications (PDF's) from 2003 onward. CPDC is by no means a comprehensive source of government documents or other grey literature. It is, however, a good starting place for such publications. Here are a few things to bear in mind about the CPDC.

  • It only includes monographs (books), not series or periodicals (journals). That means, for example, that publications such as the annual school rankings publication from the Fraser Institute will NOT be in the CPDC collection.
  • It has good coverage of federal government publications, but only selected provincial government items, and no local/municipal documents.
  • CPDC includes publications from a wide range Canadian public policy institutes, advocacy groups, think tanks, university research centres, and public interest groups. Here is more detail from the vendor:

CPDC offers access to selected Canadian “grey literature”. These reports from non-commercial publishers are freely available on the Web, but they are often difficult to collect and access without a tool like the CPDC.

The collection includes research papers, reports, studies, policy papers & briefs, discussion papers, numbered series, working papers, political party platforms, evidence reviews, systematic reviews, economic evaluations, and environmental scans. Coverage of annual reports is limited. Inclusion of technical reports is limited to health-related topics.

You can search the CPDC collection in two ways:

  • Canadian Public Documents Collection - Ebooks and reports published by Canadian organizations and government bodies.
  • Through Summon or the library catalogue - Every item in the CPDC collection has been added to our library catalogue so you will find them when searching in Summon or the classic library catalogue.