With a new library platform from September

After the summer holidays, you can look forward to a new look of discovery service UKAŽ (ukaz.cuni.cz/en), which will replace the current Ebsco Discovery Service. In addition to searching for printed, electronic and digital resources from Charles University’s library collections, the new UKAŽ will provide users with direct access to their accounts. Therefore, it will no longer be necessary to use a separate library catalogue for tracking and renewing loans and making loan requests. Instead, everything will be newly available in one place, under one account, with a single online registration to all CU libraries. UKAŽ will also offer the option to save the search records for later, export citations via the citace.com manager, set alerts on interesting topics etc.

It is not only the interface for library users that is going to change. The environment for librarians will change as well – Alma, a modern library platform, will replace the existing Aleph, Verde and SFX systems. From the coming academic year, Charles University will be the first one in the Czech Republic to provide library services in the same system as Harvard, Leuven, Vienna and other foreign universities.

Before we launch a new platform from September 2021, it is necessary to temporarily close all libraries’ operation at Charles University. The temporary shutdown will take place from 12 to 31 August 2021 inclusive. Data from existing systems will be transferred to the new platform, the system configuration will be finalized, and we will train all CU libraries staff during this period.

We advise all users to obtain the necessary literature before closing the CU libraries. We also ask those who have any outstanding debts in libraries (books with an exceed loan period or fees and fines) to settle them.