FAQ

We regularly write blog posts, which are linked on the main page. You are also welcome to sign up for our mailing list. To do so, send a message to fid-bbi-subscribe@hab.de. To complete the subscription, reply to the confirmation email sent to your email address.

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to write to us via our contact form or send an e-mail to fid@hab.de. Our project coordinator Anna Lingnau or another member of the FID BBI team will be happy to help you.

If you want to cancel your subscription to the mailing list, send an empty mail to fid-bbi-unsubscribe@hab.de.

To create a free user account, click on Create Account on the main page. Then enter your e-mail address.

We will send a mail with a confirmation link to the given e-mail address to make sure that you can receive mails from us without any problems. Click on this link. You will then have the opportunity to fill in personal details in your account and the registration will be completed.

A registration is not necessary for doing search querys in the portal.

An user account in the FID BBI portal offers numerous possibilities to personalize the research process and to improve access to the literature searched for. Users can create their own literature lists and save search queries. If the home library is registered, the system automatically checks whether the title searched for is available locally. If you belong to the user group of researchers, additional services and licenses will be activated for you.

As home library, you enter the library that you mainly use at your place of residence or work and where you are ideally registered as a user.

For books and electronically available journal articles, we can then show you whether the book is available at your library or whether you can immediately access a journal article online because it is licensed through your institution.

Once you have logged in, you can change, add to or delete your personal data yourself via Account. To change your user group, please contact us at fid@hab.de.

Click on the link Forgot Password and enter the email address you used to register in the portal of the FID BBI. We will send you an email with a link where you can reset your password.

Click on Change Password (also available in the profile menu) and follow the instructions.

Click on Update email address in Account and follow the instructions.

Be sure to log in with the new email address the next time you log in.

Please note: If we are notified that an email address associated with an account is no longer valid, we reserve the right to automatically delete an account after a certain period of time.

We take all reasonable measures to protect your data from unauthorized access.

The access to the FID BBI portal and to your account is provided exclusively via an encrypted connection. If you are logged in and no more entries are made, you will be automatically logged out after 60 minutes at the latest.

Your data is stored on a server that is not accessible from outside and backups are made regularly. In addition, in the event of important changes (e.g. if someone changes your password or e-mail address), we will always send an e-mail to the (old) address you have provided in order to additionally inform you about the changes to your account. We only pass on your data if this is absolutely necessary for our services.

You can find detailed information in our privacy policy.

Please write us a message via the contact form. We will delete your account as soon as possible.

If we are notified that an email address associated with an account is no longer valid, we reserve the right to automatically delete the account after a certain period of time.

When registering, you will be asked to assign yourself to a user group. This will determine which services and functions we can offer you.

Book Studies as well as library and information sciences depend on working professionals in libraries, archives, and other memory institutions to transfer their experience to research and to address those research questions that are directly related to institutional contexts. Therefore, we grant them access to most of our licensed content.

Researchers have access to licensed reference and full-text databases as well as e-books. In addition, researchers can benefit from our Digitization-on-Demand service and commission us to digitize a public domain work or orphan work. In the future, we plan to establish other services, such as a direct delivery of new publications from the publisher to users. Since specialized information services are funded by the German Research Foundation and are therefore primarily dedicated to German researchers, these more cost-intensive services must be limited to this user group.

Please request a change of user group by sending an email to fid@hab.de. We will examine your request within 1-2 business days. If approved, the change will be made automatically, otherwise we will contact you.

The FID BBI portal aggregates title data related to the subjects of book studies as well as library and information science. There are two procedures:

1. We filter general databases and catalogs to the relevant subject section. Only title data that is assigned to a book, library or information science subject via its classification is integrated into the portal. We filter numerous German and international (union) catalogs.
2. We fully integrate subject-specific databases into the BBI portal. These can be reference databases, in which, for example, thousands of articles are individually indexed and searchable, or full-text databases, through which the titles can be accessed directly.

You can view the complete list of data sources here.

By default, your search term is searched for in all available sources. The results are sorted with an automatic ranking. If you click on a title in the results list, you can access all the information about that title. In the availability display you can see how to access the title you need.

There are two ways to do this:

1. You can narrow down your results using the search facets on the right side of the results list.

   There are seven facets that you can use to filter your results:

   • Access: The results are distributed across the three subcategories “Online resources”, “Local holdings” and “Accessible free of charge” and can be filtered accordingly.
   • Media type: The media type indicates whether a document is a book, an article, a video or similar. You can exclude media types from the search or search for them separately.
   • Subject area: Titles are assigned to a subject area via the classifications (DDC, RVK and BK); the search can be differentiated via these subject areas.
   • Language: If you want to limit the search to English and German literature or prefer another language, you can filter the results according to your wishes. Since we are currently unable to offer a multilingual search, we recommend to formulate your search query in the language in which the literature you are looking for is to be written.
   • Person/Institution: In this facet you will get an overview of the persons, publishers and institutions that are most represented in your results list.
   • Data source: The FID BBI search portal aggregates metadata from a wide variety of sources. Using this facet, you can filter the results to the entries from the union catalog of your home library, or search a subject database individually.
   • Year of publication: If your search is aimed at e.g. old prints or the latest specialist literature, you can narrow down the search here accordingly.

   You can combine several facets and also deselect them individually or completely to refine your search.

   Your facet selection is automatically applied to new searches as well. You can see this by the funnel icon that appears in the search field. If you want to start a new search on everything, click the funnel icon and uncheck “Keep filter”.

2. You can perform an advanced search.

   You can access the advanced search at any time from the menu near the search box. There you can specifically assign your search terms to individual search fields (e.g. person / title / keyword). You can also search for specific publication years or for an ISBN or ISSN.

Not all databases relevant to the BBI subjects are already integrated in the portal. Under “Further search entries” you will therefore find a thematically sorted list of further databases in which separate searches may be useful. Via the traffic light system you can see which database is freely available or only available through a license.

Unfortunately, the ordering procedures for interlibrary loans differ between the various library networks, so we are not yet able to offer you an order form directly via the search portal. However, you can of course copy our bibliographic data for the order and use it for the interlibrary loan order.

To support research projects regarding book studies, library and information science, the FID BBI enables on-demand digitization of public domain works. The service is completely free of charge. Standalone bibliographic units (monographs, journal volumes, yearbooks, collective works) that are located in a German library can be digitized.

The Digitization-on-Demand service can be used by the user group of university teachers, research assistants, doctoral students, scholarship holders, and external scientists in Germany. To do so, please log in to your account and access the form linked in the personal account area.

Before initiating a digitization request, please use the Karlsruhe Virtual Catalog to check whether the work in question is already freely accessible on the Internet.

In addition, works that could be in the public domain due to their year of publication are marked with a Digitization-on-Demand button in the FID BBI catalog for authorized users. You can find the button in the title display (below the green bar).

When is a work in the public domain?

In Germany, a work is in the public domain if the author has been deceased for more than 70 years (see § 64 UrhG). If the work has several authors, the work becomes public domain upon the death of the longest-lived co-author. The 70-year term applies to most other European countries.

Very gladly, you can submit acquisition suggestions to us at any time.

If you cannot find a monograph, journal, or journal article in the catalog, we will try to provide you with that resource. Write to us via our contact form and indicate in as much detail as possible which medium you are missing in the catalog. We will then check whether we can order it as part of the specialized information service and inform you.