Finding relevant literature and information
The University Library provides access to high-quality media from both German and international academic publishers and specialist information providers. Whether you’re looking for books, e-books, articles or technical standards, use our tools to quickly find what you need!
Library catalogue
Use the library catalogue to search through our inventory: both our electronic and our print resources. Please note: if you are looking for journal articles, please use EDDI or a suitable database.
EDDI
In EDDI, you can simultaneously search through our library catalogue and some of our licensed databases to find books, e-books and journals, as well as the chapters and articles they contain.
DBIS
The database information system (DBIS) lists all of the databases, sorted by subject area, that we have licenses for. You can use DBIS to find standards databases such as Nautos and the VDE-NormenBibliothek, statistics databases such as Statista or citation databases such as Web of Science.
EZB
The Electronic Journal Library (EZB) contains all e-journals that the library is subscribed to. Here, you can see whether we have access to the PDFs of a journal and, if so, for which publication period. Please note: if you are looking for journal articles, please use EDDI or a suitable database.
VPN – access anytime, anywhere
If you want to use our electronic media regardless of where you are, our Virtual Private Network (VPN) is the answer! Connect to the campus network to open the PDFs of e-books and electronic journals or to use EDDI and our licensed databases.
Managing literature
Do you regularly lose track of good sources? Can you just not remember the rules of the citation style that you’re supposed to use? Literature management programmes are the solution:
- Collect, organise and evaluate all your search results in one place
- Automatically create references and bibliographies based on your chosen citation style
- Maintain an overview
- Avoid accidental plagiarism
With our campus license, university members can use the literature management programme “Citavi for Windows” free of charge. You can also get to know the programme in our course “Citing with Citavi for Windows”!
Set up a Citavi account with your university e-mail address.
Install the Citavi software. You can find the system requirements here.
- Open Citavi and click on the login symbol. Once you have entered your account information, the university license will be automatically recognised.
- Install the Zotero software.
- Set up a Zotero account with your e-mail address (either private or university).
| Zotero | Citavi |
For Windows, MacOS, Linux, Android, iOS | For Windows |
Free of charge | Free of charge for students (licensed by Reutlingen University) |
Open source (user plugins available) | Only with a license |
Relatively simple knowledge organisation (collections, notes, tags) | Elaborate system with many functions |
Coworking feature: shared libraries | Coworking features: simultaneous access for multiple users, task planner |
Cloud storage: 300 MB in free version, expansions available to buy | Cloud storage: 5 GB |
No AI-features | Integrated AI features for searching and summaring text |
Browser plugins for automatic reference importation | |
Microsoft Word plugins for citation | |
PDF viewer | |
Still unsure about searching for and managing literature?
Whether for your term paper, your thesis or a successful presentation: we are here to help you efficiently find relevant literature. We can help with topics such as:
- Which search strategies should I be using?
- How do I access the relevant full texts?
- What databases are important for my subject?
- How can Citavi or Zotero support my academic work?
