Online catalogue ESTER

Edited: 10.02.2021

Online catalogue ESTER is a web catalogue containing the collections of the ELNET Consortium member libraries, including their special and branch libraries, and the collections of archives and museums.

ESTER contains 3,3 million titles and 10 million copies, including

books, newspapers, journals;
maps, printed music, sound and video recordings, photos, graphic art, paintings, manuscripts, ephemera;
full texts, including ebooks and links to the files of digital archives;
board games, musical instruments, sports equipment, e-readers, seeds;
information on forthcoming publications of Estonian publishers.

The catalogue enables to search

by keyword;
by author, title and subject term;
by call number, Universal Decimal Classification (UDC) number and standard number (ISBN, ISSN, ISMN, etc.).

You can

search the entire catalogue or limit the search to one library;
search for only online resources, periodicals or theses/dissertations;
limit the search by language, type of publication, year of publication or publisher;
find the exact location of books and other publications in the library;
see if the item is available or checked out.

Although the online catalogue is continuously supplemented, it does not yet comprehensively reflect the collections of member libraries – older collections are completely described only in card catalogues.

My ESTER

My ESTER is a self-service environment where you can log in if you are the registered user of a Consortium member library. You can register as user online or on site in the library.

My ESTER enables to

see your checkouts and renew the due dates;
request publications for use on site or home lending;
send to libraries your suggestions and purchase recommendations;
see your library’s new acquisitions.

The catalogue is managed by the Estonian Library Network Consortium and it operates the software of the integrated library system Sierra, developed by the company Innovative Interfaces (USA).

The official name of the catalogue is Online Catalogue ESTER and it has been derived from two MARC21 codes used for describing items in the catalogue: EST (language code for Estonian) and ER (country code for Estonia). The user interface of the catalogue is in Estonian and English. The data of the online catalogue are freely available to all for copy cataloguing .