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Research of data and literature

There are many different ways to search for relevant literature on a topic. There is no such thing as the perfect search. At the beginning of a search, you should consider exactly what you are looking for. This has the advantage to define the searched topic clearly in terms of content and to narrow down the search results more systematically.

Before starting a search, various search terms should be defined that cover different aspects of the topic. It is helpful if words with the same or similar meanings are included in the search (synonymous search).

Search engines or library catalogs often only search for the exact character string. Therefore, especially for a complete search, the spelling of the search term in singular and plural form and also upper and lower case should be considered. In addition to the word form, the language of the search term should also come into focus, because many subjects have their own scientific language.

The library portal Primo is a modern library catalog and provides access to local and external resources such as books, e-books, journals - but also journal articles, book chapters or digital objects from the holdings of the FU Libraries and from a mega index with over 4 billion records.

The focus of the data in the Article+ megaindex is currently on English-language technical literature. A total of about 55,000 journals from more than 50 providers are indexed (cf: Liste der  im Suchraum Artikel+ des Bibliotheksportals Primo aktivierten Ressourcen  as pdf file).

Books in the library portal Primo

The search for books can be done in the Bibliotheksportal Primo filtered out by using the filters/facets "books" - for e-books in combination with "online resources".

In the FU Catalog & Article+ search space, licensed e-books, but also books with free access from the Primo Index Article+ are found, which originate, for example, from institutional repositories, open access platforms. For parts of the book inventory, book chapters can be found if there is corresponding metadata on the part of the publishers in the Primo Index Article+.

If a book is not available at Freie Universität, it can be ordered via interlibrary loan or suggested for purchase.

Download e-books

Members of the FU Berlin and authorized users are permitted to conduct searches for themselves and to copy a selection of the researched data (e.g. bibliographic records including abstracts, journal articles, full texts or excerpts thereof) into their working memory (cf.: Terms of Use of E-Resources).

Download and print options vary depending on the provider.

E-Book-Collections

Please note that in the case of e-book collections, it is usually not the entire collection that is licensed, but only a selection of titles in accordance with the collection profile of the FU Libraries.

Further research tools

Databases of the Libraries of Freie Universität Berlin

Freie Universität Berlin provides its library users with an extensive range of databases (see also..: Nutzungsbedingungen von E-Ressourcen).

The offer includes licensed as well as free databases for literature references, full text archives, fact and image databases, video archives and more. Databases should be searched complementary to Primo - especially if the database is not offered via Primo. (vgl.: Datenbanken in Primo [pdf-Datei]).

The databases of Freie Universität Berlin have been maintained in the Database Information System (DBIS) since January 2017. DBIS is a cooperative service for the use of scientific databases developed by the University Library of Regensburg.

Over 300 libraries are involved in the database information systemt (vgl.: Bibliotheksauswahl/Einstellungen) . (For information on switching to DBIS, see also the blog post in BiblioBlog.: Datenbanken zukünftig auf der deutschlandweiten Plattform DBIS).

DBIS - Database Information System (Freie Universität Berlin)

In Biblioblog, the weblog of the libraries of Freie Universität Berlin, the university library publishes postings about new or test databases, which can also be subscribed to as an RSS feed.Nutzerinnen und Nutzer können Datenbanken vorschlagen. Die Universitätsbibliothek kann in den meisten Fällen zumindest einen zeitlich begrenzten Zugang zum Testen vereinbaren. Kontakt: digibib@ub.fu-berlin.de .

Related links

The journal holdings of the libraries of Freie Universität Berlin are listed in the library portal Primo.

NOTE: The individual articles of the journals can be found mostly, but not completely in Primo, because the data of articles or book chapters or newspaper articles come from external providers (JSTOR, Web of Science, Springerlink, etc.), which are not 100% congruent with the holdings of the FU Libraries (see also Datenbanken).

E-journals

Please also note the large offer of e-journals, which you can search in the library portal Primo in the search room FU catalog. The supraregional portal for e-journals is the Zeitschriftenbibliothek (EZB): at "Select library" you can find out about the holdings of e-journals of other libraries in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Czech Republic and Slovakia.

Many journals now continue exclusively in electronic form.