Online resources

AATA online

Free access – AATA Online is a free research database containing abstracts of literature related to the preservation and conservation of material cultural heritage. It has been managed and published by the Getty since 1983. 

ABI/INFORM

Business and economics (management, finance and banking, accounting, trade, etc.), engineering journals and journals from other fields as well, more than a third of which are available in fulltext. ABI/INFORM Global and Trade&Industry are included in the subscription.
Provider: ProQuest.

ACM Digital Library

Specialist portal of ACM (Association for Computing Machinery) in the field of computer science and information technology, divided into two databases: ‘ACM Full-Text Collection’ with the full texts of all ACM publications since 1954 and the ‘ACM Guide to Computing Literature’ with bibliographical references and abstracts from selected publishers since 1908. No access to eBooks.

Agricola

Bibliography of the US National Agricultural Library. Provider: Ovid.

AgriRxiv

Open Access – Collection of pre-prints in agronomy and related fields, published by CABI.

Agris

Free access – FAO bibliography of international agricultural literature.

ARBOR

Open Access – The institutional repository of the Bern University of Applied Sciences offers a complete overview of all publications of the BFH.

Archinform

International architecture database with information on more than 84,000 buildings and plans by important architects.

BASE

Open Access – BASE is one of the world's most voluminous search engines especially for academic web resources. You can access the full texts of about 60% of the indexed records for free (Open Access). BASE is operated by Bielefeld University Library.

BDSL Bibliographie der deutschen Sprach- und Literaturwissenschaft

Bibliographic references from 1985 for German linguistics and literature.

Berg Fashion Library

Articles and images on fashion from the beginnings until today. Contains images from the V&A Museum and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the "Berg Encyclopedia of World Dress and Fashion", ca. 150 e-books as well as a museum directory.

Bibliographic Database of the Conservation Information Network (BCIN)

Free access – BCIN, the Bibliographic Database of the Conservation Information Network, is the web's most complete bibliographic resource for the conservation, preservation and restoration of cultural property.

Business Source Premier

This database (business, marketing, management, finance, economics) contains bibliographic references plus more than 1'100 full-text journals as well market research, industry and country reports. Provider: EBSCO.

CAB Abstracts

Agriculture and forestry, chemistry, nutrition, food technology and science, medicinal plants and pharmacology, biotechnology, environmental sciences, tourism, etc. 14 simultaneous users. Provider: Ovid.

ChemRxiv

Open Access – Pre-publication platform dedicated to early research outputs in a broad range of chemistry fields.

CINAHL Ultimate

Extensive resource for enquiry and research in nursing and related health professions: biomedicine, healthcare, complementary medicine, consumer health, etc. Contains over 2500 journals in full text. Provider: EBSCO

Cochrane Library

The Cochrane Library contains three databases: Systematic Reviews, Controlled Trials and Clinical Answers

CORE

Open Access – CORE brings together open access publications from various data providers such as repositories or publishers. CORE serves as a search engine for finding scientific full texts. The service can also be used as a tool for text and data mining or AI applications via public APIs.

DACH Information

The multidisciplinary database DACH Information offers a collection of German-language journals, magazines and specialist publications in full text.

Subject areas include: art, business and economics, communication, education, law, history, humanities, linguistics, management, marketing, mathematics, nursing, psychology, social sciences and social work

DETAIL Inspiration

The DETAIL Inspiration database includes documentation of national and international projects with detailed construction drawings from issue 1/1961 of the magazine DETAIL.

Directory of Open Access Journals DOAJ

Open Access –  a directory of quality-checked, freely accessible journals

DORA WSL

DORA is the digital repository and bibliography for all research articles and other publications affiliated with WSL, the Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research.

EconLit

Electronic bibliography of the American Economic Association (AEA): economic theories, production, country studies, trade, social indicators, etc. Provider: ProQuest.

Edition Soziothek

Edition Soziothek is the central platform for knowledge transfer between Universities of Applied Sciences and social work practice. Professionals and students of social work get access to current literature on social work.

Embase

Embase Database that contains bibliographic records from biomedical articles in peer reviewed journals, and is especially strong in its coverage of drug and pharmaceutical research, pharmacology, toxicology and medical devices. 
The database can be searched using the Emtree thesaurus subject headings.

Emcare

Emcare database that covers all nursing specialties and nursing healthcare professions. Emcare includes international coverage of allied health, education and training, development and management, midwifery, health and healthcare economics, clinical medical and healthcare social work, psychiatry and mental health, and traumatology, emergency and critical-care medicine.

e-periodica

Free full-text access to digitised Swiss journals about science and culture (includes architecture and engineering).

ERIC

Documents on educational science of the Education Resources Information Center (US Department of Education). 
ERIC can be searched on two different platforms: Ovid and ProQuest.

Essential Science Indicators (ESI)

The Essential Science Indicators database reveals emerging science trends as well as influential individuals, institutions, papers, journals, and countries in your field of research. Data is based on a 10 year rolling file and covers 22 fields of research.

Euwid Holz und Möbel

The comprehensive source of information for the wood and furniture industry

Fachportal Pädagogik

Literature database with full texts and references for pedagogy, social pedagogy and social work.

Fedlex – the publication platform for federal law

The platform includes the Federal Gazette, the Official Compilation and Systematic collection of federal law, as well as international treaties and consultation procedures.

FIAF

The International Index to Film Periodicals contains over article citations from the world's leading academic and popular film journals. Provider: ProQuest.

FSTA Food Science & Technology

Database with references from publications in the field of food science and technology as well as nutrition from 1969. Provider: Ovid.

getAbstract

Text and audio summaries of the latest business literature from fields such as leadership, finance, innovation, technology and science. Register with your BFH email address for full access.

Google Scholar

Free access – Google Scholar is a freely accessible web search engine for academic documents. Google Scholar indexes full texts and metadata of academic articles, patents and books from all disciplines. Access to full text is dependent on the licences of BFH.

GreenFILE

GreenFILE contains information on the impact of humans on the environment. The following topics are covered: global climate change, green building, pollution, sustainable agriculture, renewable energy, recycling, etc. Provider: EBSCO.

Holzbaukultur

Free access – Holzbaukultur is a project of the Department of Architecture, Wood and Construction at the BFH. The database documents Swiss timber buildings from over six centuries. There is also a podcast in which the culture of timber construction is discussed.

IBA International Bibliography of Art

Applied art, architectural and art history, museum studies and conservation; bibliographic references from 2008. IBA is the successor of BHA (Bibliography of the History of Art). Provider: ProQuest.

IBA – pre-2008

Free access – The pre-2009 BHA (Bibliography of the History of Art) references are not included in IBA. They can be searched in this database. In addition to the BHA database from 1990 to 2007, the database also contains data from the Répertoire International de la Littérature de l'Art (RILA) from 1975 to 1989. 

IBSS International Bibliography of the Social Sciences

International Bibliography of the Social Sciences of the London School of Economics: Economics, Political Science, Sociology, Anthropology. Provider: ProQuest.

IEEE Xplore

Full-text database of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers with literature (journals, conference reports, standards) in electrical engineering, electronics, information and communication technology, and computer science. Also included are the IBM Journal of Research and Development, VDE Conference Proceedings in English, and the Bell Labs Technical Journal Archive.

INRAE

HAL INRAE is an open access repository for depositing and consulting scientific publications of the French National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food, and Environment.

JBI Joanna Briggs Institute Databases

Healthcare database that includes  five publication types: Evidence Based Recommended Practices, Evidence Summaries, Best Practice Information Sheets, Systematic Reviews, and Systematic Review Protocols. Provider: Ovid

JSTOR

JSTOR is a digital library of academic journals, books, and primary sources. The BFH offers access to several JSTOR sources. 

Knovel

Fundamentals for engineers (handbooks, reference works) and interactive tools for calculations (equations, tables, graphs, unit converter). The following modules are licensed:

• Civil Engineering & Construction Materials
• Composites
• General Engineering & Project Administration
• Manufacturing Engineering
• Mechanics & Mechanical Engineering
• Nondestructive Testing & Evaluation
• Sustainable Energy & Development

Kunstforum International Online Archiv

Find more than 25,000 texts and 200,000 images in what is probably the most comprehensive documentation of contemporary art history from 1973 to the present day and search specifically for all topics and contents that move current art events. 
Single-user licence on site in the HKB Media Library.

Legalis

The legal database contains standard works from the Basler Kommentare series, short commentaries and selected handbooks. Journals published by Helbing & Lichtenhahn are also available.

LISA

Library and Information Sciences Abstracts LISA analyses more than 400 specialist journals on librarianship and information science from 1969 onwards. Provider: ProQuest.

LISTA

"Library, Information Science & Technology Abstracts": Database for library and information sciences. References from more than 580 journals, books and conference reports from the mid-1960s. Provider: EBSCO.

Livivo

The search portal for medicine, health, nutrition, and environmental and agricultural sciences.

Medline

Database of the National Library of Medicine (USA): clinical medicine, anatomy and physiology, pharmacology and pharmacy, dentistry, psychology and psychiatry, public health. Medline can be searched on three different platforms: Ovid, ProQuest or Web of Science (see also: Pubmed)

Music

On the website of the HKB Music Library you will find numerous music databases, specialised portals and other sources.

OpenAlex

Open Access – OpenAlex is a bibliographic database of the non-profit organisation OurResearch. OpenAlex contains the metadata of scientific publications, journals, authors and institutions. OpenAlex offers an alternative to commercial and closed databases such as Scopus or Web of Science, including a free API for text and data mining or AI applications.

OSF (Open Science Framework) Preprints

Open Access – Search simultaneously multiple subject repositories with preprints.

Ovid (search interface)

Search interface for all licensed Ovid databases: Agricola, CAB Abstracts, Embase, ERIC, FSTA Food Science & Technology, JBI Joanna Briggs Institute Databases, Medline, PsycInfo, Psyndex.

Paperity

Open Access – Interdisciplinary full text database for articles from open access journals.

PEDro

Open Access – Database of the Centre for Evidence-Based Physiotherapy of the University of Sydney, Australia.

Primal health research databank

Free access – Explore correlations between the 'primal period' (fetal life, perinatal period and year following birth) and health and personality traits in later life.

PsycInfo (APA Psychinfo)

Psychology and related fields of interest: psychiatry, medical care, sociology, economics. Provider: Ovid.

Psyndex (PSYNDEX Databases)

Tests: used in the fields of psychology and education in German-speaking countries. Lit & AV (Literature and Audiovisual Media database): bibliographical information on publications in psychology by authors in German-speaking countries.
Provider: Ovid.

PubAg

Free access – Database published by the National Agricultural Library of the US Department of Agriculture. The focus of the database is on recent scientific publications (1995-) in the field of agriculture, mainly peer-reviewed articles. The search results contain the links to the full-text of the articles (DOI).

PubliSA

PubliSA collects German-language publications of all kinds that address social work and its social framework, its fields of work and its target groups. Bibliography, no full texts.

PubMed

Open Access – Contains the references of biomedical literature in Medline as well as life sciences journals and e-books. Free resource published by the US NIH (National Institutes of Health).

Saphir

Public health database (politics and economics of health, work safety, prevention and promotion of health, hospital management, etc.) compiled by several Swiss health libraries.

Social Services Abstracts

Social Services Abstracts provides bibliographic coverage of current research focused on social work, human services, and related areas, including social welfare, social policy, and community development. Social Services Abstracts is a part of Sociological Abstracts.

Sociological Abstracts

Social sciences, sociology and social work. Bibliographic references from 1952 to the present. Also includes Social Services Abstracts.

SpringerMaterials

Database covering all key topics in materials science, chemistry, physics, engineering and related fields: the world's most comprehensive collection of materials and substances with information on substance classes, types of use and applications, advanced data visualisation functions showing interactive crystal structures, data tables and phase diagrams with export options, search by elemental composition or chemical structures.

Structurae

Structurae offers information on structures and projects in structural engineering, and on other areas related to the design, planning and execution of these structures, such as product reports or profiles of companies and people.

Swisslex

The Swisslex legal database contains all decisions of the Swiss Federal Supreme Court, the other federal courts and most of the cantonal courts of last instance, as well as legal commentaries, monographs and specialist journals. 
Registration with the BFH e-mail address!

waldwissen.net

Free access – Information for forestry practice

Web of Science

Multidispiplinary database; contains references to articles from journals, books, conference proceedings etc. in the fields of arts, humanities, social sciences, natural sciences, medicine and technology. Web of Science also offers various abstract and citation indices:

• Science Citation Index
• Social Science Citation Index (with economics)
• Arts & Humanities Citation Index (with architecture)
• Emerging Sources Citation Index
• Conference Proceedings Citation Index: Science – Social Sciences & Humanities
• Journal Citation Reports JCR

Weblaw

The Lawyers' Portal provides access to a comprehensive legal bibliography, Jusletter, Richterzeitung and the Social Welfare Law Database. 
Registration with the BFH e-mail address: Click on the person icon in the top right-hand corner >  "Login" or "Forgot your password?" > "Neu anmelden bei Weblaw AG" > "I'm studying or working at a college/university." > Enter your BFH e-mail address

WISO

References to articles in the German language on sociology, social work, business and economics, political science. 

WTO iLibrary

WTO iLibrary is the online research depository of the World Trade Organization (WTO) featuring its publications, reports and other research material.

Dissertations & Theses (A&I)

References for more than 2.4 million dissertations and master's theses worldwide from 1861. Abstracts are available for dissertations from 1980 and for master's theses from 1988. Previews of the first 24 pages are available for some dissertations.

Eurostat

Free access – Statistics of the EU member countries; cooperation with the OECD and UN as well as with Central and Eastern European countries, the former Soviet Union and Mediterranean countries.

FSO: Interactive and visual tools

Interactive and visual offerings from the Federal Statistical Office FSO, including infographics, statistical atlases and STAT-TAB (interactive data to create statistical tables according to individual needs).

FSO: Statistical Yearbook of Switzerland

Free access – The Statistical Yearbook, published by the Federal Statistical Office (FSO), has been the standard reference work for Swiss statistics since 1891. It presents the main statistical results for Switzerland and the people who live and work there.

OECDiLibrary

Full-text reports, statistics and studies from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development

Swiss-Impex

Swiss foreign trade statistics

e-newspaperarchives.ch

Free access – e-newspaperarchives.ch provides access to titles digitized by the Swiss National Library and its cantonal Partners.

Factiva

A database for press, corporate and business information offered by Dow Jones. It contains up-to-date sources from 200 countries in 32 languages, including newspapers, news agencies, industry publications, websites, company reports in full text.

Orbis

Orbis contains comprehensive information on companies worldwide. Use it to research individual companies, search for companies by profile and analyse companies. Also contains market research reports from Marketline.

Searching in Orbis is generally possible without a login. With the BFH login, you can create a personal user account if required and save search and filter settings, for example.

Regional Business News

Contains regional business publications from the United States and Canada.

Swissdox

Swissdox contains Swiss daily and weekly newspapers, magazines and journals, press agencies, online media as well as newspapers that are no longer published from 1780 until today.

Swissdox is updated daily. You can display all articles from a current newspaper edition by

• leaving the search field for search terms empty
• selecting "Today" in the next field using the drop-down menu or entering the exact date of the desired day, e.g. 2022-09-08 to 2022-09-08
• "Select newspaper"
• clicking on the red "Search" button.

Derwent Innovations Index

Patent information from 60 patent offices worldwide dating back to 1963. Includes titles and abstracts, own indexing in addition to IPC (International Patent Classification), combination of patents from multiple patent issuing authorities into a single patent family for easy and complete discovery of each invention, patent references. Translation of non-English patents into English. Accessible via Web of Science.

Espacenet

Free access – Database of the European Patent Office, which offers free access to over 150 million patent documents worldwide, containing information about inventions and technical developments from 1782 to the present day.

IGE IPI

Free access – Swiss Federal Institute of Intellectual Property: Website with links to patent databases in Switzerland and worldwide for free self-research

E-Learning "The basics of national and international standardization"

Free access – Using a case study, this course covers what standards are, what added value standards create, how standards are established and how to be involved, and which are the main national and international standards organizations. Duration approx. 30 minutes.

ETSI

Free access – Standards in the field of telecommunications, broadcasting and other electronic communications networks and services developed by ETSI (European Telecommunications Standards Institute), a European standardisation organisation. ETSI standards can be downloaded free of charge in PDF format.

IEEE Xplore

IEEE standards are international technical standards for electrical engineering, electronics, information and communication technology and computer science.

SNV-Connect

In addition to references, it contains the full texts of all ISO standards as well as current Swiss standards:

• SWISSMEM
• Electrosuisse
• INB Interdisciplinary standards section (SNV)
• SIA

The full texts can be saved and printed as PDF. They may not be passed on to third parties. Log in with your SWITCH edu-ID.

SNV-Connect also offers the Standards compendium 2022 (read only).

VSS Standards

Standards of the Swiss association of road and transportation experts.

Students can register free of charge. This gives them access to the complete digital body of VSS standards and publications.

Art & Architecture Source

Database for visual and applied arts, design and architecture. Includes the databases Wilson Art Full-Text and Art Index Retrospective as well as 750 journals in full-text, references and abstracts from renowned international journals (USA, UK, France, Italy, Germany, Spain, Holland), 220 e-books and 63'000 images.

Artstor

Collections of images from museums, private collectors, photographic agencies, photographers of architecture, etc. for use in research and teaching.

Deutsche Fotothek

The Deutsche Fotothek in the SLUB Dresden is one of the most important image archives in Europe with a collection of around seven million photographs and an online offering of currently around two million image media. Its aim is to preserve and activate important examples of analog and digital photography through online presentation, exhibitions and publications.

ETH E-Pics Image Archive

In the image archive of the ETH library more than 500'000 images are available for free download, 100'000 of these images are in the public domain and can be used without restrictions. The collection includes photos of Swiss history of science and technology, the archives of Swissair and the Fotostiftung Schweiz as well as the Baugeschichtliche Archiv of the city of Zurich.

Rijksmuseum Studio

More than 500'000 images of works in the museum's collection have been digitised; 200'000 of these images are available in the Rijksmuseum Studio and can be freely adapted.

Statens Museum for Kunst (National Gallery of Denmark)

As part of the Google Art Project this museum has digitised in high resolution approximately 40'000 images of works of art in the public domain, which can be used and adapted by the public.

Filmfriend

Over 3500 selected films and series, including a selection especially for children and young people. Access is via Switch edu-ID and requires SLSKey authorisation from the Media and Information Centre MIZ of the Zurich University of the Arts ZHdK or the ZB Zürich.

MIZ Video online

MIZ Video online contains TV programs that the Media and Information Centre MIZ of the Zurich University of the Arts records using the web-based video recorder nanoo.tv. The films are listed in swisscovery and can be accessed online in streaming format. Access is via Switch edu-ID and requires SLSkey authorisation from the MIZ.