From quantity to quality: changes in information provision in a medium-sized Dutch university library

Abstract

The Catholic University of Nijmegen is located in the south-eastern region of the Netherlands and offers a broad range of academic programmes in eight faculties, including a Science Faculty, and a Faculty of Medicine with a university hospital. The university has a number of research schools and institutes that produce research of a high standard, particularly in the field of cognition research and information technology, chemistry, physics, and language behaviour research. As a university with a catholic identity, Nijmegen strives to attach surplus value to all of its tasks, in particular by relating knowledge to philosophical insights. The Catholic University of Nijmegen (KUN) offers sixty different academic programmes. The organisation puts much effort into promoting and guarding the quality of its teaching, and continually strives to intensify its international student exchange programmes, by, for example, teaching parts of its programmes in English. There are five research schools within the University of Nijmegen that have all been recognised by the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW): the Nijmegen Institute for Cognition and Information, the Nijmegen Son Research Institute (research in the field of molecular structure and synthesis), the Research Institute for Materials, and the Institute of Cellular Signalling. Finally, the Research School for Philosophy distinguishes itself by operating in a broad, inter-university context.