Loan Account

Once you have logged in to your loan account, you will see an overview of the items you have borrowed and reserved, and you can renew the loan periods for borrowed items. In your loan account, you can also view your orders and reservations, your fees, and your permanently saved favourites or saved search queries.

To log in, you will need a UniCard (How do I get my UniCard?).

You can then log in via the Shibboleth login using your BITS username and web password. Please also refer to the information provided by BITS.

University members can use their personal login details for numerous services that utilise Shibboleth authentication. Examples include logging into your loan account, accessing licensed resources (e.g. e-books, e-journals and databases) and using the electronic course catalogue (eKVV).

If you have previously logged in to your loan account or another 'Shibboleth' service at the university on your device (e.g. PC, laptop or smartphone), you will generally be logged in automatically when you click 'Login'.

Always click on the ‘Log out’ link after use. On the public computer workstations in the library, close the browser window after clicking ‘Log out’. If you are using a device that other people have access to (e.g. a shared PC at home), you should clear the browser cache after use (see instructions).

If you do not know or have forgotten your web password, you can reset it via the 'Request a new web password' link on the Shibboleth login screen or in the PRISMA portal.

If you are unable to log in despite entering your BITS login name and password correctly, try closing and restarting your browser or clearing your cache. If you are still unable to log in, please contact the BITS helpdesk. External users can also contact the service desk at the Library Services Center.

If you receive an error message when trying to access the catalogue or your loan account (e.g. 'You are not authorised to access this page' or 'File not found'), or if you are taken to a blank page, there may be several reasons for this.

• You may have used an incorrect link. Always use the URL https://katalogplus.ub.uni-bielefeld.de to access the catalogue or your loan account.
• There may be an issue with your network (Wi-Fi), internet service provider, or browser. Try opening other websites to check this.
• The IP address you are using to access the site is blocked. In this case, please find out your IP address. Send us the exact web address you were trying to open, your IP address, and the exact time of the access attempt by email. We will then check whether an IP block is in place and lift it if necessary.
  Background: The catalogue is protected against mass access attempts by bots, etc. Software is used to detect such access attempts and block the IP addresses. Bot attacks often involve numerous IP addresses, so entire IP networks comprising many addresses frequently have to be blocked. It is possible that your device's IP address (e.g. PC, laptop or smartphone) is part of a blocked IP network. This does not mean that your IP address or device has been used for unauthorised access.

If you can log in but cannot access e-books or other online resources listed in the catalogue, please follow the guidance under 'Access to e-books and full-text articles'.