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VIVA: VIVA Grants for Libraries

Virginia's Academic Library Consortium

This guide has variable layouts and houses the majority of the "sub" pages for VIVA's website.

VIVA Grants for Libraries offers funding and support to libraries in their efforts to expand, promote, and empower instructors and students in meeting curricular needs on campus.  With a particular focus on open education, VIVA Grants for Libraries recipients develop projects that address obstacles in adopting open course materials, such as the development of test banks for OER, enable innovative pedagogy through the production of guides and course resources, and widen understanding and interest in OER through training and programming.

Available to VIVA member libraries, VIVA Grants for Libraries will award grants in amounts ranging from $5,000-$30,000, and may be used within libraries, in multi-library collaboration, or in partnership with faculty and instructors on campus.

Why?

Libraries are crucial to addressing the challenges students face in accessing course materials in an affordable, timely fashion. Libraries are also aware of the curricular needs on their local campuses and are well-poised to consider and address those needs. For example: Is there a department that would address a textbook for a required class if it had a robust text bank to accompany it? VIVA Grants for Libraries can provide the funding for a library to hold a test bank sprint with their campus needs in mind. Is there a guide or teacher’s manual that would encourage faculty on campus to pilot a new approach to an expensive upper level lab? Librarians and instructional designers can work together to pull together that resource from other open sources.

Examples of a Grants for Libraries project may include:

  • Test banks sprints
  • Accessibility audits
  • Training in how to work with AI in the classroom
  • Facilitated staff retreats to prepare for the transition to OER
  • The development of a handbook for faculty creating videos for online courses
  • Mapping campus introductory courses to the OER on VIVA Open
  • Creating a guide for students to low-cost courses on campus
  • The creation of a campus-specific syllabus bank
  • Developing materials on OER to handout to new and adjunct faculty

Who?

VIVA Grants for Libraries are available to teams based in VIVA member libraries. While the PI for each grant must be based in the library, collaborations between libraries and university faculty are welcome. Multi-institutional collaborations between multiple libraries are also encouraged. Libraries/librarians can collaborate with faculty, instructional designers and others outside of the libraries, and robust plans that include collaborators both within and outside libraries will make for strong applications.  

When?

The application for the VIVA Open Adopt Grant is available now. Applications will be accepted until 11:59 pm on November 5, 2025. Grant recipients will be notified in December, 2025, and initial payments will be made in March, 2026. 

How?

The VIVA Open Grant applications must be filled out online, but a pdf preview can be found, along with the application link, on the grants application and RFP page. There you will also find the RFP and the application instructions, which you are encouraged to read. 

More information can be found in the following ways: