Electronic Books / E-books
Many scientific publishers now offer their books in printed as well as online formats (called e-books). Their formatting corresponds with those of the printed books (PDF documents).
Bayreuth University Library has acquired many such e-books since 2007, especially from publishers such as Springer, Wiley, De Gruyter Brill, Elsevier, Hanser, UTB, Beck and Vahlen. All these e-books are available online via campus licences (via IP range check; an individual password is not necessary; alternatively, Shibboleth authentication is also possible in most cases) and can be read online, downloaded and printed by authorized users (professors, university staff, students) for their academic purposes. More details on different e-book publishers can be found below.
The licenced titles are all listed in the library catalogue and are accessible via the publisher’s websites. Please note that distribution and systematic downloading (e.g. by bots) of these contents is prohibited and that German Copyright Law also does apply to e-books..
Bayreuth University Library has acquired many such e-books since 2007, especially from publishers such as Springer, Wiley, De Gruyter Brill, Elsevier, Hanser, UTB, Beck and Vahlen. All these e-books are available online via campus licences (via IP range check; an individual password is not necessary; alternatively, Shibboleth authentication is also possible in most cases) and can be read online, downloaded and printed by authorized users (professors, university staff, students) for their academic purposes. More details on different e-book publishers can be found below.
The licenced titles are all listed in the library catalogue and are accessible via the publisher’s websites. Please note that distribution and systematic downloading (e.g. by bots) of these contents is prohibited and that German Copyright Law also does apply to e-books..
Bloomsbury
Bayreuth University Library offers various e-books from Bloomsbury Publishing on Bloomsbury Collections.
In particular, titles from the collections of anthropology, literary studies, and film and media studies were acquired.
Böhlau
From the publishing house Böhlau an e-book collection “Musikwissenschaft” (musical studies) was acquired, containing around 40 titles. These contents are available on the platform V&R eLibrary chapter by chapter to read online, download and print.
Brill
From the publishing house Brill, over 800 e-books are available. In particular, the collections Human Rights and Humanitarian Law from the publishing years 2006-2008, as well as the collection Middle East and Islamic Studies from the publishing years 2012-2018 were acquired.
Cambridge
From the publishing house Cambridge University Press, several hundred e-books from all disciplines were acquired. Accessible titles are marked with the following symbol: 
Content-Select
Bayreuth University Library acquired a few thousand mainly German e-books from the publishing houses Bertelsmann, dpunkt-Verlag, Haufe/Schäffer-Poeschel, mitp, oekom-Verlag, O’Reilly, VDE, Vogel, Transcript, WBG and Wichmann from the following disciplines: social studies, cultural studies, economics and earth sciences, as well as technologies. These are available via the platform Content-Select to be downloaded chapter by chapter or printed.
De Gruyter Brill
Bayreuth University Library acquired several thousand e-books from various disciplines from the publishing house De Gruyter Brill. These, as well as e-books from the publishing houses Oldenburg and Akademie-Verlag, which have been acquired by De Gruyter Brill, are available on the De-Gruyter-Brill-platform. Additionally, the following reference works from the subject areas of language and communication studies have also been acquired:
You can download and print the available e-books chapter by chapter.
Duncker & Humblot
From the publishing house Duncker & Humblot, various subject-specific collections are available via Duncker & Humblot eLibrary. These specifically are: 200 titles on history, economics and law.
The licenced e-books are marked with the
symbol and can be read, downloaded and printed without additional individual registration.
The licenced e-books are marked with the
symbol and can be read, downloaded and printed without additional individual registration. Elsevier
From the publishing house Elsevier, around 900 titles from the field of mathematics (publishing years 1949-2008) are available in the context of a national licence funded by the DFG.
Additionally, Methods in Enzymology as well as other encyclopaedias in several volumes are available in the context of a licence of the University on ScienceDirect.
European Mathematical Society
There are around 200 e-books on the subject of mathematics available from the European Mathematical Society. You can download (as PDF) and print the available titles in full.
Hanser
From the publishing house Hanser, Bayreuth University Library has acquired over 2,000 e-books on the subjects of economics, natural sciences, technology, mathematics and computer sciences.
These titles are available on Hanser e-Library to be downloaded and printed.
Herdt
From the publishing house Herdt, more than 800 textbooks and study books on computer sciences (incl. Windows, Microsoft Office and Teams) were acquired. These e-books can be downloaded in full. Additionally, supplementary contents might also be included, such as video tutorials, examples and solutions or tests.
InLibra
On the newly established (2025) platform InLibra e-books from various formerly independent platforms, such as C.H. Beck e-library, Nomos and Vahlen e-library, as well as other publishing houses from the subject areas of history, social studies, law and economics, are collected and made available. The over 10,000 available titles are marked with “Volltextzugriff” (= full text available).
IOP Publishing
There are more than 200 e-books available from the Institute of Physics (IOP). Bayreuth University Library has acquired titles from the IOP Concise Physics Collection (releases 1 to 6) from the publishing years 2014-2019.
Manchester University Press
On the platform Manchester Hive, 156 e-books from the collection “Studies in Imperialism 2018” from Manchester University Press are available. You can read these contents online chapter by chapter or in full, download them and print them.
Springer Nature
Bayreuth University Library has been acquiring e-book collections across many subject areas from Springer Nature since 2007.
Titles from the publishing houses Gabler, Teubner+Vieweg, Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, Palgrave and J. B. Metzler are also included. In total, over 150,000 German and English e-books have been acquired, including textbooks and volumes from different series. Additionally, more subject-specific collections and series are available in the context of national licences funded by the DFG.
Some important series:
Additionally, the publishing house offers the option of purchasing printed copies of specific English titles at a reduced price for University staff and students. More information can be found here: Springer MyCopy.
Some important series:
- Lecture Notes in Computer Science starting 2008, including archived content up until 1996
- Lecture Notes in Control and Information Sciences: archived content up until 1996
- Lecture Notes in Mathematics starting 2008, including archived content up until 1996
- Lecture Notes in Physics starting 2012, including archived content up until 1996
Additionally, the publishing house offers the option of purchasing printed copies of specific English titles at a reduced price for University staff and students. More information can be found here: Springer MyCopy.
Taylor & Francis
Bayreuth University Library has acquired numerous titles from Taylor & Francis throughout all disciplines.
University Press Scholarship Online
On the platform University Press Scholarship Online, more than 400 e-books from publishing houses such as Oxford University Press, University of Chicago Press and MIT Press are available.
Disciplines included are: mathematics, physics and music. You can download and print the contents chapter by chapter. Titles that are available are marked with the following symbol: 
UTB
On the platform utb studi-e-books, various e-books, specifically important textbooks in the humanities and natural sciences, are available online. You can download and print the contents chapter by chapter.
Wiley
From the publishing house Wiley, various e-books from all disciplines are available via the platform Wiley Online Library. You can download these e-books either chapter by chapter or in full.
WISO
The database WISO contains a few thousand current e-books from the disciplines of economics and law. These e-books are a selection from the publishing houses DATEV, Duncker & Humblot, Gabal, Rainer Hampp, Schäffer-Poeschel, wbv media and many more. These e-books can be found in the library catalogue, but can also be accessed directly as WISO e-Books.
Additionally, various other contents are available via DFG-funded national licences, such as:
and other freely accessible e-books
- Early English Books online, including over 125,000 titles (1473 - 1700)
- Eighteenth Century Collections online, including around 180,000 titles
- Making of the Modern World, including around 61,000 economics books from 1460 to 1850
and other freely accessible e-books
- if you search in DBIS ("license type": freely accessible; "database-type": dictionaries, encyclopaedias, reference works)
- The Online Books Page with more than 3 million books (international, all subject areas, not listed in the library catalogue).