The information in them isn't brand new since it takes some time to write a book and then get it published. This makes books good for subjects like history, the arts, literature, and the humanities. For recent information in the sciences you may need to use periodicals, but books are still helpful for getting an overview of the subject. They usually come out once a week or once a month. You will find current information about a subject.
Journals are a special kind of magazine.
The articles in journals are scholarly, focussing on part of a subject, not the whole subject. You can use them to find out the day's events. You can also use magazines or newspapers for information that is not current. If you need to find out what happened on a certain day in history, it is helpful to find a newspaper from that day so you can read about the day's events. But generally, you will use newspapers and magazines for more current information.