Frequently asked questions

The ETH Library is open to the public. People aged 16 and older and companies who are domiciled or work in or near Switzerland are welcome. Registration and many of the services are free of charge. 

More information on registration

• ETH Zurich faculty, staff and students use their ETH card as a user ID after successful registration.
• Private individuals can obtain a user ID from any library of ETH Zurich free of charge after registration.)
• Companies apply for an account through the external page registration platform

We will be happy to assist you if you need help with registration or have any questions about our services:
or +41 44 632 21 35.

The ETH Library can be used with any swisscovery library user ID (SLSP).

A list of all affiliated libraries can be found in the external page swisscovery List of Libraries.

Yes, you can. If your SWITCH edu-ID is linked to your ETH user account, your data will be synchronised automatically with your library account. Your ETH affiliation will only become active in the library system after successful linking of SWITCH edu-ID and ETH user account. All notifications will be sent to your ETH office address or ETH e-mail address. Advantage: you only need to update and manage your data once.

• ETH Zurich faculty, staff and students: Please update your information by going to bi.id.ethz.ch/eAdressen/ and also confirm the change on external page https://eduid.ch.
• Private individuals: You can manage and change your address information only from your external page SWITCH edu-ID account.

• ETH Zurich faculty, staff and students and private individuals use the function external page Reset Password of the SWITCH edu-ID services.
• Companies: please contact or use the ‘Reset password’ link in the login dialogue.
  

You can continue to use the ETH Library after leaving. Please ensure that you have stored the correct new contact details (at least a private e-mail address) in your SWITCH edu-ID account, so that we can still contact you when the link to your ETH user account expires.

For registration purposes, you can continue to use your external page SWITCH edu-ID account. An SLSP user card can be obtained free of charge from any library of ETH Zurich.

You can borrow up to 100 documents at the same time and order a maximum of 50 documents per institution zone (e.g. ETH Zurich, UZH und ZB Zürich, Universität und PH Bern) .

ETH Library documents can be ordered via external page ETH Library @ swisscovery and delivered to any library of ETH Zurich. An e-mail notification is sent as soon as the documents ordered are ready for collection on site.

Please note the delivery terms.

You can find detailed information under Searching for, finding and using media.

You can pick them up at the location you defined as the pick-up location. The documents will be available for you for seven (7) days. The availability periods are also displayed in your user account.

• You will be notified by e-mail as soon as the book has arrived at the desired pick-up location.
• You can check the status of your orders on ETH Library @ swisscovery in your user account under “Orders”.

This depends on the location of the document and the chosen pick-up location.

Provided that the document is shown as available in the catalogue, it takes between one hour and 2-4 working days.

Yes, if you cannot collect the requested item yourself, you may authorize another person to collect it on your behalf. This person must present your library user card.

Yes, media ordered via the SLSP courier can be collected and returned at any ETH Zurich library.

Good to know: The ETH Library and Zurich Central Library offer their own courier service. Documents from either of these libraries can be picked up from and returned to the other library without incurring any costs.

If the document is not reserved by someone else, it will be automatically renewed five times.

If you are unable to return a document after receiving a reminder, please contact your library as soon as possible. The staff there will discuss the next steps with you. If you are truly unable to find the document in question, it will be considered lost. You will be charged for the cost of purchasing a replacement along with a service charge of CHF 80.00 (per document). As a rule, it is not possible for you to organise a replacement on your own.

Go to external page ETH Library @ swisscovery to view all licensed electronic media.
You can find an overview here:

• Databases
• E-books
• Journals
  

You can find detailed information under Use of electronic media.

Make sure that you are currently on the ETH Zurich network and that you are authorised for access. If so, look for the information on online access in the search results in external page ETH Library @ swisscovery. It will tell you whether we have licensed a certain document and for which time period.

If we have licensed the database, e-book or e-journal and you are authorised to access it, but you still are unable to open the document, please contact or +41 44 632 21 35.

We charge a fine for overdue books and documents.

Detailed information about the reminder process and paying fees you can find under Ordering, borrowing, renewing.

Please note: Your user account will be blocked automatically when the third reminder is sent.
You can see an overview of the fees here.

You can pay the fees in two ways:

a) Within six weeks by mobile phone and QR code – using the usual electronic payment methods – at one of our desks (excluding HDB – HönggerbergDepotLibrary).

b) By QR bill, which SLSP AG will send by email after six to eight weeks – see also the external page SLSP FAQs.

If you enter the payment details yourself, please note that you must include the reference number. Payments without the reference number cannot be assigned and must be refunded, meaning that your invoice will remain unpaid.

If you do not receive an invoice as expected in case b), it may have landed in the spam folder of your mailbox; therefore, please also check your spam folder regularly.

In the last few months, you have used services that are subject to a fee and you may have already received reminders. Since the switch to swisscovery, invoicing is no longer carried out by the ETH Library, but SLSP AG instead.

Invoicing takes place on a monthly basis, with the invoices covering the services subject to a fee that you used in the month before last.

You will be invoiced by SLSP AG. You can then pay any fees conveniently by bank transfer.

In swisscovery you can view the fees associated with your account under: My Account > Fees.

Should you have any questions about individual invoice line items, please contact the library listed for the relevant line item on the invoice. Complaints shall only be accepted by the responsible library within 30 days of the date on which the invoice was dispatched.

SLSP AG creates a collective invoice for services subject to a fee that are used at libraries connected to swisscovery. The invoice shows at which library each service was used. It can happen, however, that individual services from libraries are not listed on the invoice, as these are not part of swisscovery and/or invoiced directly by the respective libraries.

SLSP uses a different system to manage fee payments. As a result, the information in your user account may not be up to date.

If you have any questions, please contact the fees office: .

Fees are labelled “transferred” when they have already been transferred to SLSP’s external financial management system for billing, but have not yet been paid. Fees are labelled “closed” when they have either been paid or in the event that we have been forced to write them off due to non-payment (the latter will result in your account being blocked).

Interlibrary loan: We procure documents or copies of documents for you that are not available via ETH Library @ swisscovery. You can find detailed information under Interlibrary loan.

Document delivery: We copy articles or chapters from documents that are part of the ETH Library holdings. You can find detailed information under Document and copy delivery.

Important information for ETH Zurich employees:
If you order items directly from an SLSP library, you will be invoiced for the cost of digitisation. Please place an interlibrary loan for these orders. These loans are free of charge for ETH Zurich employees.

We copy one article or chapter per order. The article or chapter may be no longer than 50 pages and make up no more than 30 percent of the entire document. For copyright reasons, we do not copy complete documents.

You can find detailed information in the Download ETH Library list of fees. (PDF, 440 KB)

The ETH Library offers study spaces at five locations:

• InfoCenter
• Architecture and Civil Engineering Library
• GESS Library
• Green Library

• Members of ETH Zurich and other universities can get online by logging on to the Wi-Fi (ETH username or Eduroam) or via VPN.
• Private individuals can use the public ETH Wi-Fi for guests.

The Locations and opening hours page offers you an overview of the photocopiers, scanners and printers available to you on the ETH Library premises.

Good to know: Members of ETH Zurich can use the ETH print service stations. You can find detailed information under ETH print service.

Lockers are available at the following locations:

• InfoCenter (day lockers and semester lockers)
• Architecture and Civil Engineering Library (day lockers and semester lockers)
• Green Library (day lockers and semester lockers)

Semester lockers and long-term lockers cost CHF 30 per semester. Day lockers are free to use. If you would like to rent a locker, please contact the InfoCenter of the ETH Library ( or +41 44 632 21 35) or the circulation desk at the library in question.