Online access

In addition to printed publications, the University also makes a vast range of databases, electronic books, and magazines as well as digital documents available to its users.

To use our digital range of resources on a computer outside of the university network, students and university staff can set up a VPN connection.

External users can use the public PCs in the branch libraries to use most of the digital resources.

(Exceptions: Open Access publications can be used worldwide without a VPN connection. A few databases and some copyright-protected digital copies can generally only be used on the public PCs in the branch libraries. Please note our "Usage tips" in the Bamberg catalogue.)

E-Books

In addition to 1.6 million printed books, the University Library also offers a good 1.2 million e-books. All e-books are available around the clock in the Bamberg Catalogue. You can also search for specific e-books there (see image on the right). In the list of search results, e-books are recognisable by a symbol. To access an e-book, please click in on the respective button in the detailed view of the result. The licence conditions vary depending on the publisher (e.g. PDF download of the entire book or only chapter by chapter). Please contact us if you have any questions or suggestions for acquisitions - or use the online enquiry service. "Ask your librarian".

Newspapers

Scientific journals are primarily available online at the University Library. There are several options for searching for journal articles:

  • Article title known: Search with the bibliografical information in the tab "articles & more" in the Bamberg Catalogue,
  • Article title unknown: Search within the Electronic Journal Library for the title of the journal,
  • Topical Search: Search within a database.

Some journals are only available in printed form in the University Library. The best way to find them is to search the Bamberger Katalog for the title of the journal (not: the article you are looking for).

Databases

Databases offer the possibility to search for information regardless of whether the literature is available at Bamberg University Library or not.

Most of the databases we have licensed are specific to the subjects represented at the University of Bamberg. Here you will find articles from academic journals, conference papers and, in some cases, book chapters and information on ongoing and completed research projects. Furthermore we offer general bibliographic databases, book trade databases, factual databases (e.g. company data), reference works, dictionaries and newspaper databases.

You can access the databases via the Database-Infosystem (DBIS). Each database is listed there with a short abstract.

Many databases provide the texts directly as PDF. If this is not the case, you can click on to find out whether the text is available in print or online at the University Library Bamberg. Should a database not offer SFX, you will have to look in the Bamberg Catalogue yourself to see if the text is available here.

Courses and Online-Tutorials

The University Library regularly offers introductory courses on how to use the databases.

Our Online-Tutorials offer a short introduction into the basic functions and search options of the most frequently used databases.

Contact

Please feel free to contact one our subject librarians (depending on the subject area) for questions regarding the content.

Should you have any technical question please contact the e-media department of the University Library: emedien.ub(at)uni-bamberg.de

Online Newspaper Archives

The university library offers access to the online archives of important German and foreign daily and weekly newspapers:

  • Nexis Uni: This database contains over 1.000 newspapers from numerous countries and regions. Among them are more than 50 regional and national German newspapers as well as important newspapers from Europe (e.g. Die Presse, Der Standard, The Guardian, The Independent, Le Figaro, Corriere della Sera, El País, La Stampa) and other countries (e.g. New York Times, USA Today, South China Morning Post).
  • WISO: You can search for articles from 200 daily and weekly newspapers from the German-speaking world here (i.a. ZEIT, Welt, taz, Handelsblatt, Focus, Der Standard, Die Presse, NZZ, Fränkischer Tag). For most papers the archive goes back to the mid-1990s.
  • Süddeutsche Zeitung, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung


Many newspaper archives can also be used without a VPN connection; this is especially true of historical newspapers. An overview of newspapers accessible online can be found in our database-overview DBIS.

Due to the large number of sources and output formats, newspaper research is often complex. We will be happy to support you with your research.

National Licences

The German Research Foundation (German: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft = DFG) has funded the conclusion of national licences for a number of online publications (list) The aim is to enable researchers, students and academically interested private individuals to access databases, digital text collections, electronic journals and e-books.

Most national licences can be used from within the University network (also in the rooms of the library) or via VPN connection without further registration. Individuals who are residing in Germany and who do not have access via a participating institution (like for example the University of Bamberg), can register for individual access.

For a few national licences, individual registration is also necessary for students and other members of the University of Bamberg.