FAQ

We regularly write blog posts, which are linked on the main page. We also provide news and information via our Twitter account FID BBI and via our mailing list. To sign up for the latter please send a blank email 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. After you have entered your email address and name, we will send an email with a confirmation link to the provided email address to ensure that you can receive messages from us. To complete registration, click the link and fill in the personal information into your account. We will activate the access to the FID licenses, the Digitization-on-Demand service and the Direct Delivery service after we have checked your user group. This usually happens within one business day.

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. Depending on the user group, you can access the databases licensed for the FID BBI and use different delivery services.

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.

Any person can create an account and conduct research in the portal of the FID BBI. However, the primary goal of the FID BBI is to support research in book studies, library and information science. Therefore, you will be asked to assign yourself to a user group during registration. This status determines which additional services and functions we can offer you.

Researchers in book studies, library studies, and information science can take advantage of the complete services of the FID BBI. They get access to licensed reference and full-text databases and e-books. Furthermore, they can use the direct delivery service for new publications and our digitization-on-demand service

Researchers are defined as university teachers, research assistants, members of professional societies, doctoral students, scholarship holders and external scientists (e.g. lecturers) in Germany.

Research in book studies, library, and information science relies heavily on studies, contributions, and experiences from professional practitioners. Therefore, we grant access to licensed reference and full-text databases to professional practitioners engaged in research. An overview of these databases can be found here.

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.

The FID BBI supports research, even if it takes place within your studies or in training. If you are involved in a research project or writing a thesis and would like to use the services of the FID for this, that's fine. Just send us an e-mail to fid@hab.de. We are happy to help 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.

From here, researchers and working professionals who are registered and logged into the FID BBI portal can access the reference and full-text databases that the FID BBI has licensed for its target group.

In addition, there are a number of other databases that are relevant to BBI topics but are not yet integrated into the portal. In the section "Further databases relevant to book studies, library and information science" you will therefore find a thematically sorted list of databases, that might be interesting for you. Using the traffic light system, you can see which database is freely available on the web or accessible via the network of your home library.

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.

We offer our direct delivery service for all researchers in book studies, library and information science. When searching the FID BBI portal, new publications will be marked in the search results. You can also search specifically for new publications by clicking on the "New Publications" link under the search box on the main page.

If you are registered and logged in to the portal as a researcher (see "What are user groups?"), you can order these titles free of charge for loan. The book will be ordered from the book shop and then sent directly to the delivery address you have entered in your account. We always try to ensure that the delivery takes place as quickly as possible. If a title is not in stock and must first be obtained from the publisher or abroad, delivery may be delayed. However, it is usually faster than interlibrary loan because the book is sent directly to you and does not have to be processed in the library first.

Starting from the day of delivery, you can use the book for 30 calendar days. After that, you must return the book at your expense to us. You will receive detailed information on this when ordering and upon delivery. Unfortunately, an extension of the deadline is not possible.

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.

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.