Are you starting your research career at the University of Konstanz?
We have gathered important information for you.
What do I need to do first?
Active your University account
As a university employee, you will automatically receive a university e-mail address. In order to activate your e-mail account, you will need an initial password, which you can collect in person from the KIM Beratung in the library's Information Center. Please bring:
- Your employee ID card
- A photo ID (ID card / passport or identity card)
The initial password must be changed to a permanent password. This will then be your central university account (first name.last name + password) with which you have access to all university systems, such as the eLearning platform ILIAS, ZEuS, the university intranet, and much more.
Library Card and Password
New staff members can pick up their staff card at the KIM advice desk in the library's information centre. This card is automatically also your library card.Your staff card is also your library card. In order to make a reservation for books on loan or order media via one of the document delivery services, you will need a library password, which you can obtain either at the Circulation Service counter or from the KIM-Support in the library's Info Centre.
You can then log in to your library account using your staff number 03/... and your library password. From your library account you can also set up a PIN, which is required in order to use the self-service machines in the library.
Additional library cards are also available for researchers via the Lending Services desk:
- Permanent Loans (Handapparat): Items which you need to use for an unrestricted amount of time can be issued to you as permanent loads. There is a limit to how many permanent loans you can borrow at any one time. If another user reserves one of the items you have on permanent loan, we ask that you make the item available to them for 1 week.
- Course Reserve (Semesterapparat): You can create a collection of course relevant core literature for your students at the start of term. The collection is under your name and you can choose whether items can be borrowed from it for 2 days or set as "not for loan" to ensure that all course participants have access to course relevant items. The course reserves are available in a separate room in the library on level BG 3.
Setting up Wifi and VPN Access
Literature Search:
To search for literature you can use our local library catalogue (with approx. 2 million items) and KonSearch, our literature search machine which not only searches for books and ebooks, but also directly in articles and book chapters (with more then 500 million entries).
The library catalogue and Konsearch provide direct access the our licensed ebooks and databases as well as journal articles and individual ebook chapters as long as you are with the University Network (connected via wifi or VPN).
Additional Research Tools:
- DBIS – Access to subject specific databases via the Database Information System.
- EZB – The Electronic Journals Library (EZB) lists all licensed ejournals in Germany and shows which date ranges our library has access to.
- FIDs – Subject Information Services (FIDs) enables researchers from all subject areas to access specialised literature and research relevant information from anywhere. (only in German)
Acquiring Literature
You'd like to make a purchase suggestion?
Our subject specialist librarians are responsible for purchasing literature for the library. Just speak to your subject librarian. Individual titles can also be suggested for purchase, either in print or if possible as an ebook via a campus license.
Document Delivery
The KIM offers various document delivery services:
- Interlibrary loans: for items not in our collection at the University of Konstanz.
- Subito for staff: delivers articles from scientific journals and books directly to your email address.
- KonDoc: delivers scans from books or journals in our library to your email address.
- Pay-per-view: electronic journal articles, which haven't been licensed via the KIM can be ordered via pay-per-view.
These services are free of charge for University staff.
Services for Researchers
IT-supported research
The KIM offers various dataservers and the cloud for saving your data.
It also offers a selection of software and hardware for members of the University.
KOPS - the University of Konstanz institutional repository
KOPS offers members of the University the option to publish documents online as Open Access. It also provides a bibliographie of all University publications since 2008. It is also possible to create lists of publications.
Borrowing a Device/Media Equipment
You can borrow a variety of devices from the KIM, such as conference speakerphones for hybrid teaching, KIM.MediaBoxes for self-recording of teaching videos and much more.
A complete list can be found here. Further information is available from the KIM-Beratung.
Printing / Photocopying / Scanning
Throughout the entire university you will find multifunctional devices for printing, copying and scanning. Photocopy cards can be linked to your university mail account, so that scans can be sent directly via e-mail.
When scanning, we recommend selecting OCR to allow for further editing.
You can also find an overhead book scanner in the Mediothek (Media Centre - accessible via the Information Centre in the library).
Bookable Teaching Rooms
The KIM offers bookable teaching rooms for lecturers and tutors. These are suitable for different teaching needs and can be booked via our booking form.
E-Science
Open Science
The Open Science team has gathered relevant information and can give individual advice on research data, publishing and open access.
E-Learning
You can find information on digital teaching and digital exams here.