Virginia's Academic Library Consortium

Associated Committees and Groups

• SCHEV Library Advisory Committee
• Virginia Research Libraries Group
• Virginia Independent College and University Library Association

Participating Institutions

George Mason University
James Madison University
Old Dominion University
Radford University
University of Virginia
Virginia Commonwealth University
Virginia Tech
William & Mary 

Virginia Research Libraries Group

Member Libraries

George Mason University 
James Madison University
Old Dominion University
University of Virginia
Virginia Commonwealth University
Virginia Tech
William & Mary

The Virginia Research Libraries Group is a forum for library leaders at the public doctoral institutions within VIVA to share information and develop aligned approaches to the challenges and opportunities unique to research-intensive institutions. Areas of particular interest to the group include fostering increased equity and diversity in research collections and supporting more open, efficient, sustainable, and equitable systems of scholarly communication.

Current Initiatives

Sustainable scholarship is a priority for the Virginia Research Libraries (VRL) group. Affordable and equitable access matters. Throughout all VRL initiatives and collaborative negotiations, this is top of mind for the group’s library deans.

The group aims to make data-driven decisions when collaboratively researching and planning ways to provide resources that faculty, students, and communities need to do their work, learn, and create new knowledge. Member libraries examine years of data on where faculty publish, what journals they cite, and what journals they are cited in as well as considering article downloads and the use of journals in teaching. The group members also solicit and receive input from their universities’ journal users.

VRL members bring all of this information forward to work together in providing the most equitable, affordable, and sustainable ways to acquire and access informational resources.

Each VRL member is dedicated to communicating its commitment to this goal through its web pages dedicated to sustainable scholarship:

• George Mason University
• James Madison University
• Old Dominion University
• University of Virginia
• Virginia Commonwealth University 
• Virginia Tech
• William & Mary

Past Initiatives

Elsevier contract negotiation

Virginia Research Libraries group collaboratively negotiated a contract with Elsevier. This is part of a longer-term effort to realign investments in favor of tools and resources that are more equitable, affordable, and sustainable.

During the preparation for and commencement of negotiations with Elsevier, VRL libraries worked collaboratively in data collection, alternative access processes and research, and communications to ensure their universities were informed and served during and after negotiations. As a part of this, member library deans and directors held an informational Sustainable Scholarship Forum. Working as a group, they discussed the unsustainable cost of accessing Elsevier’s academic journals and options to make their public universities’ research more accessible to the public that paid for it. 

Group members also created a summary of facts for their institutions’ leaders to keep them informed.

News and statements

• Virginia’s public research libraries welcome White House guidance to make taxpayer-funded research freely available without delay (Dec. 16, 2022)
• Virginia Research Library Deans and Directors Endorse the MIT Framework for Publisher Contracts (Oct 23, 2019)
• Statement from Deans and Directors of Virginia Research Libraries on the University of California System’s Termination of Contract with Elsevier (Apr 10, 2019)