EZB Help

  1. What is the EZB?
  2. What does the EZB contain?
  3. What accessibility options are available?
  4. How can I search for e-journals in the EZB?
  5. How can search for e-journals that are accessible in my library?
  6. How can it be that I do not have access to the full-text despite a yellow traffic light?
  7. What can I do if I have no access (= red traffic light) on the requested journal?
  8. How do I find a particular article, although I do not know in which journal it is published?
  9. What should I do when I'm looking for a journal, of which I only know the publisher and a part of the title?
  10. How to use the newsfeed of a journal?
  11. Why can't I find the requested volume of a journal?
  12. What can I do if I search a scientific e-journal which is not contained in the EZB?
  13. What can I do if I am not in the Electronic Journals Library of my organization?
  14. How accessible is the EZB?
  15. How can I reach my contact person?

1. What is the EZB?

The Elektronische Zeitschriftenbibliothek EZB (Electronic Journals Library) offers an effective use of both scientific and academic journals publishing full-text articles in the internet.

Currently, 659 libraries and research institutions make use of this service in their daily work.

In cooperation they collect and maintain the bibliographic data of journals in a central database. For each participating institution, we generate a range of electronic journals adapted to the respective library's requirements. Each member library can independently manage the locally licensed journals and integrate individual user instructions. Therefore e-journals on subscription and free e-journals can be offered in one system.

The University Library of Regensburg is in charge of technical maintenance and further development.

2. What does the EZB contain?

The EZB offers fast, structured and standardized access to scientific and academic full-text journals offering at least 50% of the journal articles online as full text.

Currently, it contains 116187 titles from all areas of research, among them 28643 journals available online only. In addition, 144848 journals, which are provided by aggregators, are listed. 79464 journals can be read free of charge. Furthermore, the participating libraries offer full-text access to the journals they subscribe to.

3. What accessibility options are available?

By clicking on the traffic-light symbol you will be linked directly to the journal. By clicking on the journal title the journal's URL is displayed plus further information concerning the title, e.g. which volumes are accessible at your institution.

The accessibility options to full-texts are displayed by different coloured traffic-light symbols depending on the respective institution:
Free access to full-text articles.
This institution has a license for this journal. Access to full-text articles is granted to users of this member library on the basis of a subscription.
Only some of the published volumes are accessible as full-texts for the member library.
No access to full-texts as the member library does not have a current subscription to this journal. However, tables of contents and abstracts are generally available free of charge.
€ For journals with an additional Euro symbol, individual articles can be accessed with costs on pay-per-view.
For licensed journals there is a "Readme" file next to the yellow mark on the web page with further information about the journal. Please read this file first. It gives important technical information and details about the license, enabling you to use this journal.

4. How can I search for e-journals in the EZB?

In the Journal Search are various search option available. Some search options are described below.
  1. Searching for title words
  2. Searching for subject terms
  3. Searching by subject

Searching for title words

By just entering one or more words in Titlewords you will get all titles containing this words. Does the search correspond to the title of a journal, it will be displayed as an Exact Result.

Search for an exact phrase by including your search term in quotation marks ("). You may use the Boolean operators AND, OR and AND NOT or you may group your terms using parentheses (). Search terms are not case sensitive. It is recommended to leave out very common short words like articles and prepositions and use less frequent, significant words as search terms. Example for searching title words: "mea scien"
Search result:
  • IEE Proceedings - Science, Measurement and Technology
  • Measurement Science and Technology
  • Meat Science
Example for searching title words: "journal of sea research"
Search result:
  • Journal of Sea Research
  • Netherlands Journal of Sea Research
Example for searching title words: "journal of physics" and (nuclear or atomic)
Search result:
  • Journal of Physics B: Atomic, Molecular and Optical Physics
  • Journal of Physics G: Nuclear and Particle Physics

Searching by date of entry

You may search for journals that have been added to the EZB since a particular date. Just enter the starting date in Added since .... The format is Day, Month, Year.

Example for searching by date of entry: 28.04.2023
Search result:
Searching by date of entry

Searching by subject

The journals are grouped by subjects. You can search in one or more subject lists by choosing the required subjects.

Example for searching the title word "test" in the subjects "Linguistics and Literary Studies" and "English, American Studies"
Searching by subject
Search result:
The result is an alphabetical list of the selected subjects with titles that contain the word "test".

5. How can search for e-journals that are accessible in my library?

Journals to which you have access in your institution (in the corresponding IP range or logged in there) are displayed with a yellow or green light.

To only view this journals, you can use the traffic light box to filter the journals by colour. The traffic light box is always displayed next to journals lists (e. g. by subject, alphabetically or after a search). If you want to see journals with a yellow or green traffic light, you have to uncheck the red light.
traffic light box

6. How can it be that I do not have access to the full-text despite a yellow traffic light?

Please make sure that you are within the IP-range of your institution. Usually, all computers at your library should automatically be within the IP-range. If this is possible at your institution, you can also use remote access e.g. via VPN. For more detailed information please call the contact person in your library.

If your computer is within the library IP-range but access is not possible, contact the EZB administrator in your library, the access problem should then be clarified with the publisher.

7. What can I do if I have no access (= red traffic light) on the requested journal?

Please search in your local catalogue if the print edition of the requested volume is available. If this is not the case, you can order the article via interlibrary loans or use a document delivery service, e.g. Subito. For any further information please call the contact person in your library.

8. How do I find a particular article, although I do not know in which journal it is published?

Please keep in mind that you cannot find articles in the EZB. Article search is offered by most publisher platforms so you have to connect to the journal homepage first. If you are looking for literature, please use the respective databases for your subject (you might find them via the Datenbank-Infosystem DBIS, if available in your library). Within the databases you can search for articles which are published both in electronic and print journals. In addition, you can use bibliographies or reference lists in books for your search. If you have found the bibliographic details of your article, you can search the respective journal in the EZB and access the article, if full-text access provided by your institution.

9. What should I do when I'm looking for a journal, of which I only know the publisher and a part of the title?

Please use the Advanced Search, fill in publisher and title key word in order to retrieve the requested journal. In the EZB, you can even search by using only parts of the search terms.

10. How to use the newsfeed of a journal?

For some journals, a newsfeed is available. You can subscribe to this feed by clicking on the browser´s feed icon on the detailed view about the journal. Subscribing to this feed you will receive timely updates on publications and will be referred on latest articles. The newsfeed is using RSS, a standard XML file format. To receive news, a RSS reader is mandatory, e.g. as separate client software or web browsers add-on. This newsfeed service is supported by JournalTOCs.

11. Why can't I find the requested volume of a journal?

Only the publishers decide how many volumes of a journal are supplied in electronic form. If the volume you need is not available online, please search in your local catalogue if the print edition is held by your library, otherwise you can order the article via interlibrary loans.

12. What can I do if I search a scientific e-journal which is not contained in the EZB?

Please use Suggest a Journal to inform us. We will be happy to receive your suggestion and process them as soon as possible. Please complete the form only if the journal title is NOT listed in the EZB.

13. What can I do if I am not in the Electronic Journals Library of my organization?

Please use Choose Institution to change your institution view for displaying the related holdings information. The access to the licensed journals is only available if you are located in the corresponding IP range of this institution or if you are logged in there.

14. How accessible is the EZB?

The EZB is designed accessible according to the guidelines of the BITV. Accessibility in this context means that every user can access websites, regardless of technical or physical restraints, without restrictions.

In particular, we wish to point out the following:
  • Zoom: Zooming is handled by the browser. To zoom in or out, you have to press the CTRL key (Windows) or CMD key (OS X) and adjust the zoom with either the mousewheel or the '+', respectively the '-' key.
  • Screenreader: Images which are used to illustrate text or to interact with, now have meaningful alternative text, which can be processed by a screenreader or similar tools.
  • Navigation: A skiplink has been added to the top of the page, which allows you to skip navigation and jump immediately to the main content of each site. This makes navigating the website with a screenreader much easier.
  • Advanced Search: To restrict the search to a certain subject you can use the advanced search. The selection of subjects can also be accomplished without using a mouse, by pressing the enter-key. The selected subjects can be removed right before the actual search by pressing the enter-key again.
  • Publisher's Open Access Policies: The SHERPA/RoMEO window, which provides information on the publisher's open access policies, is now fully accessible without using a mouse. After accessing all the needed information, the window can be closed by clicking the Close button or pressing the Escape key.
If you have any suggestions or improvements to the accessibility of the EZB, please feel free to contact us.

15. How can I reach my contact person?

If you have questions about the Electronic Journals Library, please ask the contact person in your institution.