If books or journals are NOT available in our library collection, these or articles from them can be ordered via interlibrary loan from other libraries in Germany for a fee.

A EUR 1.50 processing fee is charged for each interlibrary loan order placed. This fee is also due if the order cannot be processed. The costs for orders from UW/H employees are billed centrally.

Please find out more using our FAQs before ordering.

Please select what you would like to order:

• a book
• an article or a chapter from a book
• a journal article

Further information: Interlibrary loan regulations for the state of North Rhine-Westphalia

If you need an article within 24 hours, we recommend using a document delivery service (e.g. SUBITO).
SUBITO delivers articles from academic journals and books directly as PDFs. The costs are borne by the customer.

Book orders from UW/H employees must always be placed through the library, as uncoordinated book orders mean that the library discount granted is not used, and the books cannot be recorded. Therefore, management has instructed the finance and accounting department to only accept invoices for books that have been ordered or coordinated and signed by the library.

Please print out the completed literature order form—with the signature of the person responsible for the cost centre—and either hand it into the university library, send it by internal mail, or scan it and email it to unibib@spam protectuni-wh.de.

Please use this form to order literature.

Who can I contact if I have questions about literature orders?

Birgit Abels, +49 (0)2302 / 926-832, Birgit.Abels@spam protectuni-wh.de

Questions can also be sent by email to unibib@spam protectuni-wh.de.

• Information about the EndNote campus license can be found here.
• Information about the Citavi campus license can be found here.
• A free program for collecting, editing, organising, managing and citing various online and offline sources, e.g. ZOTERO.

Observing copyright is important, among other things, for placing literature in electronic semester equipment, e.g., in Moodle, in order to act legally and safely.

On June 30, 2017, the Bundestag passed the new Copyright and Knowledge Society Act (UrhWissG), which came into force on March 1, 2018, and brought several innovations. This law reformed the regulations on using copyrighted works for education and research and aimed to adapt copyright to the changing requirements of digitisation. The regulations initially apply for five years. An evaluation of the new rules is planned for 2023. If the legislature does not take action, the rules would then expire.

The most exciting parts of the UrhWissG for the university sector are the newly designed exceptions (Sections 60a to 60f), the so-called barriers. They allow the use of copyrighted works without obtaining permission from authors or publishers. The six new sections regulate, among other things, use:

• for "illustrating teaching and learning",
• for producing textbooks and other teaching media,
• for scientific research,
• for automated evaluation of texts and data (text and data mining),
• by libraries and
• by archives, museums and educational institutions.

Further information from the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF)

• What researchers and teachers should know
• Copyright in science - an overview for research, teaching and libraries (2020)

For example, you can find further information at Hochschulform Digitalisierung, iRIGHTS, and F&L. Both offer very good explanations of how the new UrhWissG can be applied in the higher education sector and further link collections.

Library Glossary

This dictionary contains around 90,000 technical terms and abbreviations (including journal abbreviations) from books, libraries and IT.

Dictionary for libraries
Library technical terms in six languages: German, English, French, Russian, Turkish and Chinese

Journal Database (ZDB)

Digital library NRW
In DigiBib, you will find many different sources of information under a uniform interface: Parallel search in large library catalogues and literature databases from all over the world. Overview of electronic resources for online or CD-ROM databases (e.g. encyclopedias, specialist databases) or high-quality free websites. Access is only possible to the free offers.

Karlsruhe Virtual Catalog (KVK)

Project Gutenberg-DE
For more than ten years, Project Gutenberg-DE has been providing classical literature on the Internet free of charge. Started as a leisure project in 1994, it has developed into the most extensive online collection of German-language literature.

Europeana
Europeana went online in 2008 to make Europe's cultural and scientific heritage accessible to the public.
It allows users to explore the digital holdings in Europe's museums, libraries, archives, and audiovisual collections.

German Digital Library
The German Digital Library (DDB) aims to give everyone free access to Germany's cultural and scientific heritage via the Internet, including millions of books, archives, pictures, sculptures, pieces of music and other audio documents, films, and sheet music.

WEB IS
The collection focuses on German libraries

ZBW
German Central Library of Economics

National licenses for electronic media
Since 2004, the German Research Foundation has been financing the acquisition of national licenses to sustainably improve the supply of electronic specialist information at German universities, research institutions, and academic libraries. The aim is to give scientists, students, and private individuals interested in science free access to databases, digital text collections, and electronic journals.

All national license offers

Private individuals can also use many of the products purchased under a national license with an interest in science. Individuals with permanent residence in the Federal Republic of Germany can register personally with the relevant institution for free access if they do not have access via a university network or academic library. Further information on the background of the funding measure, registration for institutions and individual registration for private individuals, as well as the current offer, can be found at www.nationallizenzen.de

For lecturers, the Witten/Herdecke University Library sets up semester reserves in the campus library upon request. These reserves contain the most essential books and scripts from various events. The library administration is responsible for setting up the semester reserves.

What do you have to do?

If books that are to be placed in the semester reserves are available in the library, please find them and pass them on to the responsible library employee in the campus library. If books are on loan, the library will request them back from the borrower when the loan period expires and place them in the semester reserves.

If books unavailable in the library are to be placed in the semester reserves, you must order them from the library in good time. The necessary literature order form can be found here. So that you know, the form in which the semester reserves the books should later be placed.

File copies of essays, master copies, etc., in folders that are clearly labelled with the following information:

• Title of the course
• Name of the lecturer
• Semester
• Faculty/department

so that students can quickly identify them.

When handing in the books, please state the course name and the lecturer for whom the semester reserve is to be set up.

Notes:

• Books from semester reserves cannot generally be borrowed.
• If you'd like to add private books, this is at your own risk.
• Magazines will not be placed in the semester reserve.
• Semester reserves will be closed at the end of the semester unless you tell us another time. The folders can be picked up from the library administration within two weeks after the end of the semester, after which they will be destroyed.

If you have any questions, please contact Daniela Hacke at +49 2302 926-834, Daniela.Hacke@spam protectuni-wh.de.

Professors can set up handsets to borrow media from the UW/H library for extended periods. The terms of use under Section 12a Handsets describe the conditions for setting up handsets.

What do you need to do?

1. Your electronic library user account must be activated online to set up your HA. You must have "registered" in the LIBERO library management system. If this is not the case, you can find the description for activating the user account here, or you can contact a staff member at the library information desk (campus). We will be happy to help you.
2. Please send the completed and signed application to the library administration for setting up your HA.
3. When you order new literature, please note on the literature order form that the book should be placed in the handsets set up for you.
4. If you have already borrowed books from the library that you would now like to have placed in your reference collection, please bring them to Ms. Abels in the library administration, who will take care of the processing (please remember that only books that have been financed by your own cost center can be placed in a reference collection).

If you have any questions, please contact Birgit Abels at +49 2302 926-832, Birgit.Abels@spam protectuni-wh.de.

Professors can have reference collections set up so that they can borrow media from the UW/H library for longer periods. The conditions for setting up reference collections are described in the terms of use under § 12a Reference collections.