Published on 1 January 2026

Lending

The Library Am Guisanplatz is a publicly accessible institution that belongs to the Swiss Confederation. It holds over a million items, which can be borrowed or consulted on the library premises.

BiG lending desk — © Sina Guntern/DDPS

The BiG holds over one million media items that can be borrowed free of charge or consulted on the premises. The entire library collection is accessible via the Alexandria search portal. Alexandria is part of the Swiss Library Service Platform (SLSP) and offers access to the holdings of over 500 academic libraries in Switzerland.

• Information

  • Anyone over 18 can register.
  • When you register, you agree to the BiG Terms of Use.
  • You can only remove borrowed documents from the library if you are permanently resident in Switzerland.
  • If you work for the Federal Administration or the Armed Forces, you should ideally register with your work email address and enter your private email address as a second address.
  • Institutions may also register and borrow items by providing an individual’s name and private address.
  • If you have a user card from the Bibliopass lending network, you can use this when registering; please enter your existing user number during the registration process.

• Registration

  • You can register on the SLSP. Please note that a SWITCH edu-ID account is required for registration.
  • Follow the process to the end. The first confirmation message for account creation only concerns the SWITCH edu-ID account. Then log in again with this account to link it to SLSP.
  • Anyone can register, but you can only take books out of the library if you are permanently resident in Switzerland.
  • Employees of the Federal Administration or the Armed Forces are advised to register with their professional address and to store their private address as a secondary address in the edu-ID. After registering, send an e-mail to [e-mail] to be assigned to the appropriate client group.
  • Institutions (legal entities) can find more information in our User regulations.
  • Institutions may appoint an individual (who must provide a private address) to borrow items from the library. Institutions can register on the SLSP.

• Ordering and borrowing items

  • Once you are registered, you can order items online at www.alexandria.ch.
  • Books can usually be borrowed for up to 28 days (14 days for periodicals); it is possible to renew items up to five times.
  • Items are sent by post (or federal courier) to the user’s address or can be collected from the front desk during the library opening times.
  • The following items cannot be borrowed:

  -  Works that are part of the BiG’s reference collection
  -  Works published more than 80 years ago
  -  Works with a corresponding classification
  -  Works that are considered especially valuable

  • After the lending period has expired, you can return the items either at the front desk, in the return box outside the library, by post or by federal courier service.
  • You can reserve items that are already on loan via the Alexandria search portal.
  • You cannot renew items that have been reserved.

• Consulting items on the premises

  • Items in the non-lending collection may only be consulted in the reading room.
  • The non-digitised special collections can only be used on site and by appointment.

• Notifications, reminders and fines

  • You will be notified when the maximum lending period has been reached or if another person has ordered the item you have borrowed (recall).
  • Fines for overdue items are charged in accordance with the current BiG fee schedule.
  • The fine is issued directly by SLSP. Payment on site is not possible.

Further information

• FAQ
• SLSP Registration

Useful documents

• Fees and charges schedule

  PDF104.10 kB6 February 2025

• User regulations BiG

  PDF246.21 kB4 June 2025