You can find books that you can borrow straight away in the open access area.

The following items are excluded from borrowing:

• On-site collections

• Ressources in course reserves

• Issues of journals from the current year

• Bound volumes of journals

During our service hours you can borrow media and books in person at the circulation desk or via the self-service check-out machines. Outside of our service hours you can only borrow books via our self-service check-out machines.

Books can usually be borrowed for four weeks and renewed, provided they are not on the reservation list.

Lecturers and scientific staff are entitled to an extended loan period of approximately 4.5 years, depending on the date of loan. These items may be reserved by other users, in which case they will be recalled. We will notify you by email before the loan period expires.

If books are not returned by the specified due date, charges will apply.

Please check your loan periods regularly via your user account in the online catalogue. All users will receive a reminder email shortly before their loan period expires. This is an additional service and usually works well. However, should technical problems arise with the delivery of the email, you are not exempt you from the obligation to observe your return deadlines.

In addition to their personal library account for standard borrowing, university staff can also keep a personal collection with special conditions.

• Books and other media (excluding journals) from the open access area may be moved to personal collection accounts, but only if the Koblenz University Library holds another copy available for loan, a reference copy or a course reserve copy, or if a permanently available campus licence for the e-book version is in place.

• The limit on a personal collection account is set at 200 items.

During our service hours you can return books and other media directly at the circulation desk.
You can also return books to our red returns shelf after service hours. The shelf is situated right next to the circulation desk. Items returned here will be returned automatically. Please place interlibrary loans and other special cases in the returns trolley right next to it.

Outside opening hours, you can also return books and DVDs to the return box at the library’s staff entrance. Please note that these items will not be recorded as returned until the next opening day, with the date on which they were placed in the box.

If you return items late or put them in the book return trolleys too late, fees may apply.

Returns by mail

It is possible to return borrowed media by mail.

You are responsible for returning the items. Should the items fail to arrive at the library or arrive damaged, you may be required to replace them. Please pack the items carefully.

The items will be returned on the day they arrive at the library.

If items are returned to the library late, fees may apply.

Address:

Koblenz University Library
Universitätsstr. 1
56070 Koblenz

By activating your library card or your Studicard, you agree to our Library rules and the current Library policies.

Our borrowing system will automatically notify you by email in the following circumstances:

• Before the loan period expires (reminder or recall)

• When a reserved item has arrived and made available for you

• Once an order has arrived and been prepared for you

• When an interlibrary loan has arrived

• If you ordered an item from our Rara collection

• If one of your items on loan is reserved by another user

To receive information via our email service, you must provide a valid email address that you check regularly.

Please note that emails generated by our lending system often end up in the spam folders of your respective email accounts.

This voluntary service provided by the library is offered without guarantee; in other words, it does not relieve you of the obligation to ensure that all borrowed items are returned on time or that their loan periods are extended. Consequently, any fees will apply regardless of whether or not you have received email notifications.
In the case of interlibrary loans, the item may only be ready for collection at the circulation desk a few hours after the email notification has been sent.

If you have lost or damaged a book or any other item from the library, you must replace it.

To do this, please fill in a Declaration of loss and mail it to us or hand it in in person at the circulation desk.

A member of staff will then get in touch with you to discuss the next steps.

Any charges incurred up to the date on which the declaration of loss is received must be paid.

Please also refer to Section 18(2) of our Terms of Use.

If you have any queries regarding loss reports and replacements, please contact Ms Märten (maerten(at)uni-koblenz.de).

Please note that items held at the library which are not on loan may be taken from the shelves by visitors. It is not possible to reserve items that are not on loan.

It is possible to request items held in the library’s closed stacks. The request function is enabled here in katalogPLUS.

Please let us know if your postal or email address changes. Otherwise, you will not receive notifications about items being ready for collection, or about loan periods that are about to expire or have already expired.

If you wish to deregister, you will need a Release Certificate from the library – even if you were not registered as a member. You can collect your certificate from us via this Form:

Please note that we can only issue the exemption certificate if you

• no longer have any overdue items on loan and

• all fees have been paid.

We will send the certificate to the provided email adress. You can forward it to the Student Registry Office.

If your library account has been blocked, there are three possible reasons for this:

• You still have items on loan on your account, the Return date has passed was.

• You have more than €15 in charges on your library account.

• The library has blocked your account for other reasons (address is invalid, important queries are still outstanding, proof of address has not yet been provided ...)

Please ensure that your account is not blocked before borrowing items. Otherwise, you will not be able to borrow items from the self-service machines. Your account can be unblocked either by Returning overdue items and paying the outstanding fees (at the payment machine or at the circulation desk during service hours) or be unlocked by library staff during service hours at the circulation desk. Please note that books returned via the return box must first be processed by library staff.

If you lose your library card you should immediately return to the circulation desk or notify us by mail (bibliothek@uni-koblenz.de) to have it blocked. Replacement for the lost chip card costs €18.