A frequent question about our new catalogue is what improvements it actually brings to our users’ everyday life compared to RERO Explore. Here are the 3 changes you should be happiest about.
1: Clearer results
No more disappointments with the results of our catalogue: when you are on the default Swisscovery IHEID view, you will only find documents which are actually accessible at or from the Graduate Institute. No more articles or e-books you cannot read, and gone are the physical items only available on the other side of the city, unless you decide to widen your search to other Geneva institutions. Which leads us to…
2: Country-wide courier service
Faster, easier, and clearer. The courier service is like inter-library loan on steroids, and allows you to order books from over 140 libraries all over Switzerland and receive them within two working days. When searching for a book not available in our library:
- Widen the results to Swisscovery in the search bar (instead of Swisscovery IHEID)
- Find the document you were looking for
- Log in
- Click on another library’s copy
- Use the Request – Loan button
- Ask for delivery at IHEID
- Wait for your e-mail confirmation a couple of days later
- Come to the loan desk to take your book
The best part is of course that this service is free of charge for students and staff of the Graduate Institute. One exception, though: if you want to check out a book from another Geneva institution, you will still need to visit them.
3: Automatic loan renewals
As long as nobody else has reserved a document you have on loan, it is automatically renewed for up to 6 months (or 6 weeks for short-term loans such as DVDs, graphic novels, board games, and Consultatif titles). The number of documents you can borrow has also risen to 100 items at any given time!
Geneva Graduate Institute Library Blog 
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