Drs. Fons van den Eeckhout,

Medical Sciences Librarian,

Randwijck Library for Medicine, Health Sciences and Psychology,

University Library,

Universiteit Maastricht,

Tel. +31 43 3881227,

Fax. +31 43 3619780,

Meine Veruntschuldigungen dass ich nicht auf Deutsch zu Ihnen spreche, aber diese Sprache is nicht meine starksten Seite. Instead, I shall present this lecture in English.

Universiteit Maastricht is a young university, established in 1975, and has at this moment around 10.000 students and 7 faculties. It has grown enormously in the pas years.

In the Randwijck Location 3 faculties are located: Medicine, Health Sciences, Psychology, with 4000 students.

The Medical Faculty has a staff of around 500 employees, and approximately 1200 students; 220 students enter the medical curriculum each year.

At Universiteit Maastricht the educational approach is called Problem–Based Learning (PBL).

The approach is student-centred; it is not focussed on the teacher who passes on information to the students, but on the learning process of the student. Furthermore, problems drive the learning process. Students learn to deal with the problems they will be faced with in later professional practice. The curriculum is divided into educational blocks of 4 to 6 weeks. Students do not spend hours on end listening to lectures, but attend tutorial group meetings twice a week. In these meetings, with around 10 students per group, new problems are discussed with the aid of the so-called seven-jump. The problems are presented in block books, which serve as the time-table for the block. PBL emphasises on the students' self-motivation and responsibility for learning. The tutor of a group acts as a coach: his task is to encourage the group to formulate good learning objectives, he does not teach. Student's knowledge, finally, is tested by means of block tests and progress tests. The level of the latter, which is conducted 4 times a year, corresponds to that expected at the final M.D. examination. Towards the end of the curriculum, the results on the progress test should be sufficient to pass the M.D. examination.

PBL aims at the simultaneous realisation of three objectives of professional training. First of all acquiring retrievable and usable knowledge in such a way that it is retained better and can be applied easily and directly in practice. Secondly, giving insights in learning, because this does not end with gaining your degree (learning to learn); and, finally, learning to analyse and solve problems.

This is being done with the aid of a certain method, called the Seven Jump, of which the several parts are displayed on this sheet:

1 Clarify terms and concepts

2 Define the problem

3 Analyse the problem

4 Make a systematic inventory of the explanations

5 Formulate learning objectives

6 Search for additional information outside the group

7. Report and synthesise the new information

Students use their existing knowledge, and define learning objectives at the end of every meeting. At the next group meeting they compare their findings and discuss whether they have gained a better understanding of the problem.

Between two meetings, time is spent for individual or group-wise study; they search specifically for information about the tasks. Students may also consult members of the staff.

Unlike traditional medical education, in PBL students are not obliged to use certain literature or buy only some obligatory books. On the contrary, students are encouraged to look for additional information, and to find literature that is different from the literature used by other students; this enhances the discussion in the next tutorial group session.

And here I come to the actual reason for being here: where do students go for this individual and group-wise study? In Problem-Based Learning, there is only a short period between tutorial group sessions, 2 or 3 days. Furthermore students are encouraged to search and find information independently, and do not only learn from one particular book, but look things up and discuss them with one another. This requires more titles about the same subject, and even different information carriers, some of which a student could and can not afford to buy for himself. In other words, the individual students lacks available financial resources to buy all these recommended information. Thus, in order to gain the most of Problem-Based Learning, the university should supply the students with the required information.

The traditional medical library cannot deal with this enormous group of students who would like to use the library this intensely. What impact has PBL on the Medical Library?

The University Library of Universiteit Maastricht developed the concept of a Learning Resource Centre for students, which is called Study Landscape. It consists of study space and learning resources, supervised by skilled librarians and with (at least by Dutch standards) ample opening hours.

In a Study Landscape only teacher-independent resources are available. It consists of a restricted universe of learning resources, which are directly related to the curriculum; on the other hand, there is a diversity of learning resources. To provide students with all the needed information just in time, all necessary facilities are concentrated in one building. In this way efficient spending of financial resources is possible, and last but not least the university can provide high quality and up-to-date resources and services. To put it in one sentence: a Study Landscape for PBL is a place where the student (individually or in a group) may find all needed information, where he/she has access tot the learning resources, and where he/she may manage this information, in a pleasant atmosphere.

Important is: a Study Landscape is a task for the library, it should be integrated into the library, but in a university setting it cannot be established instead of an academic library.

In discussing the Study Landscape, first of all I would like to make some remarks about the learning resources that are available. Most important: although the library makes suggestions and advises for new and old learning resources, the educational staff is responsible for the choice. As we will see later, more than in an academic library, the teachers are responsible for the collection.

The learning resources should be restricted to supporting education until the level of graduation.

Thirdly, there should be a diversity available for the students, not only in the types of media, but also there should be a variety in titles about the same subject; no more struggle between Harrison and Kelley: both titles, and even more, deserve a place in the Study Landscape. The reason for this is that experience proves that students do have various learning styles, and do prefer different information sources. Text vs. pictures, diagrams, moving images, interaction, these should all be present in the Study Landscape.

In order to give students a fair chance for obtaining the desired information, the library buys one copy of a basic book per tutorial group for its collection.

Lastly, of course there is a great demand from students to place the books for each block together. As we all know, many books are used throughout the curriculum, so for practical reasons this wish cannot be met. But there is also another reason: students must learn to find information on their own. Shelving the literature according to the NLM-classification of the academic library, teaches students to use the latter in later years.

What types of media are placed in the Study Landscape? Of course, books remain the backbone of the collection. These books are listed in the literature lists of the block books, and in the recommended literature list for the curriculum. But there are also videotapes, still some tape-slide series, anatomic models, and Computer Assisted Learning programs.

All these materials, the equipment to use it, and the study space are located in the Study Landscape as a separate part of the library, but with direct access to it. The ideal is to provide 1 study place per 7 students, and at the same time we think it is nowadays necessary that a computerised study place amounts to the size of 3.2 square meters.

You may understand that with these figures and the growing number of students, we are in a constant search for expansion. Now, at peak moments, more than 400 students are present at the same time in a location of around 1200 square meters!

It is clear that the study space in the Study Landscape, with so many students who need to visit us in order to find and digest the information, should be a cosy, but quiet area where all kinds of students feel comfortable. We try to supply a diversity of atmospheres: from individual cabinets to group rooms for 20 students, and from absolute silence to the possibility of talking to each other.

To remain up-to-date, the university itself supplies a growing number of computers that are located on campus and that are connected to the campus network. The Dutch standard ratio for computers on a university campus is 1:20. This has been accomplished, be it that not all computers are located in the Study Landscape. Therefore, we try to use the same software everywhere, at least.

The computers in the Study Landscape are located in one single room, which can be divided into 2 parts in order to give class ICT-instructions.

Our library staff is regularly trained in supporting the newest upgrades.

But this is not the only task of library staff. They do all have a degree in librarianship, and may give the appropriate information to all students. There we face a problem: the librarian has been trained to give the full answer, and sometimes even more than that; but in PBL the students should learn to find the information on their own. So, our librarians are trained to give clues to finding the desired information. In this way, we try to provide an "Information Curriculum". This is achieved by giving more instructions to the students throughout the curriculum, and by embedding these courses into the curriculum.

At this stage, you might want to know how much this all costs. I must assure you that PBL and the concept of a Study Landscape are not necessarily cheap alternatives. On the contrary, if you want to supply the students with a variety of resources, of which many need to on campus, this may place a great load on the financial resources.

We buy for 3 faculties at Randwijck approximately 2500 books each year, and the collection is fully updated every 5 to 10 years. The same is true for all equipment in order to provide the most up-to-date services. Finally, approximately 5 FTE librarians are working for the Study Landscape.

Up until now it might appear as if the Study Landscape is the sole responsibility of the library. In fact, and happily, this is not. It cannot exist without close consultation between the library and the educational staff of the faculty, and can only flourish in an environment that is student-centred. Students who are educated in this way, do have a totally different view towards individual study and the use of learning resources.

If a library meets these wishes in the right way, it might and should be taken seriously by the educational staff.

The formalisation of this co-operation is established at Universiteit Maastricht with the Learning Resources Committee, of the faculty ànd the library. This committee is in fact responsible for the contents of the Study Landscape.

On a lower level, consultation with the block co-ordinators and discipline specialists results in the constant updating of the learning resources.

To end this lecture, I would like to pose some challenges for the future. These can be divided in more traditional and more virtual elements.

In our Study Landscape, we see that the emergence of new technologies does not diminish the need for a centralised study facility. It is even so that the required size of the study space increases, and the amount of students that use the Study Landscape, grows every year.

We believe that this has much to do with two reasons: not only the fact that the campus provides up-to-date facilities and services, but also the constant need in PBL for students to communicate with each other. Of course this can be done in the local pub, too, but there no study environment exists. So we have urgent library enlargement plans for the near future.

We also have to fight the noise that is being made in the Study Landscape. Our actual building is too open, and with compartmentalisation we hope to counter this noise.

We are aware that students do a lot of photocopying, for which they pay a certain amount of copyrights, but we do not know what is the ratio between reading in the Study Landscape and at home. Finding this out might give us a better idea of our strongest and weakest points.

One of my personal ideals is to provide students with a real Information Curriculum at the same time as they do their actual study: from simple to complex literature searching, from leading by the hand to independence, and from a small amount of titles to the total world literature. Unfortunately, of course the disciplines which are taught remain most important, and it is my conviction that the pre-clinical sciences which are taught in the first years, are in fact more difficult to master in terms of information seeking, than the clinical matter which is taught later in the curriculum. We are still working on this.

Finally, the greatest challenge of all is: how should a Study Landscape evolve, in an era of computerisation and distance learning? Actually, this autumn a project of this kind will be presented to the library director. Maybe in a year or two I can present you the results….

There is much more to tell about the Study Landscape, especially about everyday problems. Also, all that glitters is not gold.

Herzlichen Dank für Ihre Aufmerksamkeit.

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