Terms of use

Please observe the terms of use of the publishers or providers and comply with them at all costs!

In general, it is not permitted to systematically download or print complete e-books or large parts of them. Likewise, the mass downloading of journal articles, complete journal volumes or databases is generally not permitted! Such reproductions are generally only permitted of individual chapters or pages and only for the user's own scientific use. A transfer to third parties is not allowed.

The library's electronic media (i.e. databases, electronic journals and e-books) are accessible worldwide via the Internet. However, access is partly tied to licenses.

Most providers currently regulate access to paid online services by checking the IP address of the requesting computer. Therefore, your computer must be connected to the TU network (this includes the dormitories on campus). You can tell whether your computer is within the TU campus network by the IP address assigned to it (IP address range 139.174.*.*). Therefore, in most cases, no special identifiers or passwords are required for access.

But even if you are off campus (e.g. at home, at conferences and congresses in other institutions, etc.) you can use licensed services without any restrictions. For this you need a VPN software. After authentication with your user ID and password, your computer will be treated as part of the TU network, and you will be able to use all services as you know them from networked computers on campus.

• Instruction of the computer center for VPN usage

Some providers also allow authentication using Shibboleth. This procedure allows you to identify yourself to participating websites as a member of the TU Clausthal and to use the offered services.

• Instruction of the Computer Center on Shibboleth

• Please check whether you are accessing from a computer within the TU campus network. You can recognize this by the fact that the computer has been assigned an IP address from the range 139.174.*.*.
• It could also be that the full text is not licensed or freely available through the TU Clausthal. Please pay attention to the provider symbols used to indicate access rights.
• If there are no access rights to the full text, it may still be worthwhile to call it up. In the case of e-books, the providers usually make tables of contents, abstracts, prefaces, test pages, test chapters or similar accessible free of charge, which can already provide a good overview of the entire title.
• Please also note that for cost reasons unlimited access by several users at the same time could not always be purchased. Thus, a licensed e-media may be temporarily inaccessible if another user is currently working with it. Therefore, please always test again later whether you can now access the full text.
• Since the e-media are located on servers of the respective providers and not of the TU Clausthal, it is always advisable to test the access again at a later time. Sometimes maintenance work or technical problems at the providers are the reason. These do not have to be immediately apparent and are completely independent of the TU campus network.

If you encounter permanent problems accessing e-media licensed by the TU Clausthal, please let us know. We will then make every effort to restore access as quickly as possible.

Especially in the case of journals, access problems may occur from time to time. Possible reasons are malfunctions of the provider's servers, unannounced changes of access regulations, URLs or passwords, sometimes even the disappearance of the journal from the net. In such cases, we ask for your understanding and, if necessary, for your notification.