FAQ about the eLibrary

You can submit a procurement proposal using the form on Trainex (Learning - Library - New Procurement Proposal): After a professional check, the literature you suggest will usually be procured as quickly as possible. Your procurement suggestions also help the FHM to better assess and take into account the need for extensions to the FHM library offer.

A procurement proposal is first checked for academic and subject suitability and preferably procured as an eBook: for this purpose, licences and prices are requested from our suppliers and then it will be procured. The procurement process usually takes 3-5 working days. Incidentally, an eBook can only be available approx. 1 day earlier than a paper book, as the organisational processes are the same and only the duration of postal dispatch is saved.

You can find purchased eBooks (with VPN access) at Ciando under "New acquisitions" (fhm.ciando.com). Books that cannot be obtained online will be made available as print copies in the FHM library on your campus.Why is my procurement proposal provided as a print version and not as an eBook?

Preferably, all book proposals are procured as eBooks. In some cases, however, the publishers do not offer licences for lending, in which case print copies are procured and made available in the FHM library at your location. Privately purchased eBooks grant exclusive, non-transferable reading rights only to the person who purchased the eBook. For the lending service of the FHM library, eBooks with special licences must therefore be purchased, the prices of which are based, among other things, on the number of users and can be many times higher than the "normal" eBook prices.

The library staff can inform you about the current status of your procurement proposal and the reasons for any delays (bibliothek@@fh-mittelstand..de / phone +49 521 96655195).

Print copies are not sent between the FHM campuses, as this would be too time-consuming from an organisational point of view. In order to be able to make literature available to as many users of the FHM library as possible, the FHM primarily relies on the procurement of online books and journals.

This is not possible with the FHM student ID. However, many university libraries offer library cards for external users. You can find out about the conditions and usage options at the respective university library

You can use any VPN software; FHM recommends the free software/app "FortiClient VPN". You will receive the necessary access data for authentication in the course of your enrolment. You can find all information about the VPN account here.

You can recognise a functioning VPN access by the fact that "FHM" (or similar) appears at the top of the portals. If this is not the case, your VPN access does not seem to be active or not working. Activate your VPN access from FHM. If you still do not get access, contact the FHM here:

Technischer Support

Depending on the search filters set, the search results are sorted in descending order by publication date, so that current books are listed first - including announcements that have not yet been published and will only be available in the future. Individual book titles may also be blocked by the respective publisher for legal reasons. In principle, of course, not all books from the publishers / portals of the eLibrary are acquired by the FHM: You can submit a procurement proposal for unavailable books (see point 1).