A warm welcome – and free registration!

Registration is free for all University of Ostrava students, including Erasmus participants or international students. You can register online via the library catalogue or in person at the lending desk or any faculty study room.

Where to find us:

The main University Library building is located in the heart of Ostrava on Bráfova Street, next to the Faculty of Social Studies. It consists of:

• Ground floor – lending desk. Here you can borrow and return books, make reservations or manage your loans.
• First and second floors – comfortable study zones. The S-Zone and the Jacques Rupnik Study Room, both are perfect for quiet study and have a student kitchen where you can make coffee or tea.

You will also find five other study rooms across the faculties:

• Faculty of Fine Arts and Music study room
• Faculty of Arts study room
• Faculty of Medicine study room
• Faculty of Education study room
• Faculty of Science study room

You can rely on a comfortable and quiet environment. Each study room offers Wi-Fi, power outlets, printing and copying services, computers, scanners, and comfortable seating. Forgot your headphones or mobile phone charger? Borrow these items from the study room staff.

Borrowing made easy

We know your schedule can be busy and unpredictable, so our lending services are designed with flexibility in mind. We recommend watching our video manuals – they demonstrate how to use the various functions of our online catalogue, e.g. searching for and requesting documents.

• Loan period: Most books can be borrowed for one month. Materials from faculty study rooms have a shorter loan period of mostly one week.
• Renewals: Need more time? Renew your books online via the library catalogue as long as no one else has reserved them. You can renew multiple times, so in many cases, you can keep a book for an entire semester.
• Returns: Bring your books back to the lending desk or your faculty study room. For added convenience, there are also 24/7 drop boxes outside the main library and faculty study rooms, which are perfect for early mornings, late evenings or weekends.
• Reservations: If the book you need is currently borrowed, simply place a reservation online. We’ll notify you by email as soon as it’s available.
• Interlibrary Loan (ILL): Can’t find what you need in our collection? We can borrow it from another library in the Czech Republic or abroad.
• Help Me to Find: Not sure where to start your search? Use our online Help Me to Find service and we’ll search our catalogues and online resources for you.

Online Resources and Useful Tools

Your student login gives you access to thousands of e-books, academic journals and specialist databases. With remote access, you can study anywhere, whether that’s your dorm room or a café.

We recommend starting with the EBSCO Discovery Service (EDS), which allows you to search all of the library’s resources quickly and effectively in one place. You can also access a wide range of e-books in various fields via the ProQuest Ebook Central online library.

Need help with academic writing? Try Writefull, an automated proofreading tool that can help you to improve the grammar, vocabulary and sentence structure of your scientific texts. Just log in with the same username and password as for the UO Portal.

Friendly help in English

Our staff are always happy to help. We can show you how to search the catalogue, locate materials and answer any questions you may have.

You can also find out more about the library’s services in the Info Guide, other brochures, and on our website.

The University Library is here to support you throughout your time at university, from your first steps in Ostrava to your final exams. Whether you need academic advice, a quiet place to study or to meet others, you’ll find it here.