One of the essential challenges of the knowledge society – the multidisciplinary character of such society – poses life-long learning as a new requirement to a person. Within the context of the paradigm of learning, the concept of learning as the pickup and reproduction of information is replaced by the concept of an interactive dynamic process of searching, where investigation and interaction with the environment leads to the birth of new understanding (Mac Farline, 1995; Berger& Luckman, 1999, etc.). According to Ritzen and Želvys (2014), creation of the conditions allowing the future graduates to acquire the necessary competences of independent work, communication, and collaboration is one of the principal aims in the context of the changing role of universities.

First-year university students (freshmen) arrive from educational institutions (schools) with differing learning environments, and thus they find very difficult to identify new learning possibilities at a university (Gudaitytė et al., 2014). In a school, the teacher is the main organizer of learning, and the textbook is the main source of information. Meanwhile, at a higher education institution, independent work involving studies of various sources of knowledge predominates. According to Jucevičienė et al. (2010), students who lack problem-based and critical thinking skills and have not learned to work independently, find it especially difficult to adapt to the altered requirements.

A number of researchers (Tautkevičienė, 2004; Jucevičienė et al., 2010; Valinevičienė, 2013) investigated studying processes in higher education, in which educational environments could be successfully projected. The university library is one of educational environments (Tautkevičienė, 2004; Bennett, 2007) that allow for a successful realization of the needs of the study programs and the students’ learning aims.

This research is a part of the longitudinal study performed at the Lithuanian University of Health Sciences and Vytautas Magnus University. The main goal of this longitudinal study was to investigate educational possibilities and preconditions for the development of intercultural competencies in the aspects of education program designing, curriculum development, and organizational practice of the intercultural communication in the settings of social service or healthcare organizations (Brunevičiūtė & Večkienė, 2004; Brunevičiūtė et al., 2004; Brunevičiūtė et al., 2005; Večkienė & Eidukevičiūtė, 2005; Brunevičiūtė et al., 2007; Brunevičiūtė & Večkienė, 2009; Eidukevičiūtė, Večkienė, Brunevičiūtė, 2013).

Our studies showed that students in biomedical studies do not only have to assimilate the study contents, but they also face another important task – to understand the multicultural context of a higher education institution, and peculiarities of intercultural communication between physicians and patients, physicians and nurses, physicians and their colleagues, healthcare specialists and social workers, etc., as these peculiarities result from differing experiences (Brunevičiūtė & Večkienė, 2004; Brunevičiūtė et al., 2004; Brunevičiūtė et al., 2005).

However, there remains an unanswered question of whether the educational environment of a library provide students with the possibility to search for information, to acquire new knowledge, and to realize the aims of the studies, whether the students are encouraged/taught to solve problems in cooperation with others, to work in a team, and to feel important members of the community who have successfully adapted to the studies. We did not find any literature on the expression of the educational environment of a library in the aspect of student cooperation. For this reason, the problem of the study is formulated through the following questions:

• How do the spaces of the educational environment of a library allow for studying/working in a team, thus developing one of the essential features of professional competence required in a health specialist’s activity?
• What are the educational possibilities of a university library for ensuring learning for students of different biomedical study programs?

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