EconBiz was jointly developed by the ZBW – Leibniz Information Centre for Economics and the University and City Library of Cologne as a DFG-funded project. The portal first went online in September 2002. Since 2013 EconBiz ist a service of the ZBW. For the relaunch in October 2010, the metasearch was replaced by a search engine index. In addition, the STW Thesaurus for Economics was integrated in order to enable automatic searches for synonyms and translations. By integrating other web services, such as the German Electronic Journals Library or the German Journals Database, it is possible to check if and where an item is available. Other services are integrated for worldwide availability options. Since 2013 the EconBiz search is based on the open source system VuFind. 2017 EconBiz has undergone an optical and technical relaunch. All parts of EconBiz are optimized for mobile devices.
Services
EconBiz offers a number of services:
The search engine index gives access to international bibliographic references and full texts in economics. Each query searches the content of several German and international databases including articles, books, working papers and journals in both printed and electronic format.
Many online sources offer access to freely available full texts. Integrated web services also allow users to check the availability of printed or electronic items in their local library. A large proportion of publications can be ordered from the document delivery service subito or through WorldShare.
The index also integrates an overview of current national and international events in economics such as conferences, meetings and summer schools.
Users can also request a librarian’s assistance during their search, by e-mail, chat or telephone, from the integrated online reference service Research Guide EconDesk.
Online tutorials and videos in the section “Research Skills” are available to users who wish to improve their information literacy. It is intended to support students in all aspects of research for academic work.
Nobel Prize laureates in Economics are listed with their publications in EconBiz Beta.
EconBiz is available in English, German, French and Spanish.
Co-operation
The EconBiz Partner Network consists of more than 30 institutions in economics and business studies around the world.
