Borrowing documents

Une visiteuse emprunte un livre à la bibliothèque

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Register with the library free of charge

To borrow documents you must be registered with a library in the swisscovery network, be at least 16 years old and have an email address and a landline or mobile phone number.

On your first visit to our library you must accept the Regulations of the library of the CJBG and show us an identity document. Minors require a signature from their legal representative.

Borrowing documents

Once registered with our library, any Swiss resident may borrow documents from our collection according to the following rules:

  • 100 documents simultaneously,
  • Each loan lasts four weeks and is automatically renewed five time (unless the document has been reserved by someone else),
  • Books that are not available may be reserved online or in the library lending office,
  • If you cannot come to the library yourself, you may authorise someone else to do so,
  • If a document is not returned when the loan is due, you will receive a reminder (1st and 2nd reminders: CHF 5 for each document overdue; if the document is still not returned, a 3rd reminder is sent: CHF 10 for each document overdue).

Please note Residents abroad have limited rights on swisscovery (Lending regulation LC 21 632). Resident in border districts (principally Ain and Haute Savoie) may borrow up to 100 documents. Beyond this region, only five documents may be borrowed at a time.

Consulting documents

We have seven work stations in our reading room where you can consult library documents or work in peace.

Requesting copies

A book scanner and a microform reader-duplicator are provided free of charge. Please consult the librarians before using these and be sure to bring a USB stick to save your scans. If you would like to pay for a higher-quality copy, please complete the copy request form (Adobe Reader version 11 is required).

Requesting a document from another library

You can borrow a document from another library and collect it from the library of the CJBG. There is a charge for this service. We will be happy to inform you of the details.