Reprinted from Business Wire

John Wiley and Sons Inc. and The Virtual Library of Virginia (VIVA), Virginia’s academic library consortium, announced today the signing of a comprehensive agreement which combines open access publishing funds with their journal subscriptions. This agreement is the first of its kind in North America.

The two-year pilot utilizes the Wiley Open Access Account to allow VIVA researchers to publish in open access journals using a central fund for article publication charges. This pivotal agreement reflects both Wiley’s and VIVA’s dedication to moving deliberately towards a more sustainable and open access environment. This pilot will allow VIVA and its members to have greater visibility into publishing activities and researchers’ funding across their institutions.

Judy Verses, Wiley’s executive vice president of Research, commented: “We are very excited to extend our partnership with VIVA into open access. We are seeing an added level of collaboration with our customers and it’s wonderful to be at the forefront of it. It’s with a shared goal of supporting researchers that we enter into this pilot with VIVA.”

Anne Osterman, director of VIVA, added: “This is a significant step in efforts to achieve a sustainable environment for scholarly communication, a goal that is deeply important to both higher education and publishers. Wiley has been an excellent partner in collaboration as we move toward this common goal.”

Carrie Cooper, dean of university libraries at The College of William & Mary, said: “We are committed to removing barriers to research published by our authors, and we appreciate Wiley’s willingness to experiment with new strategies to achieve our goals.”

John Ulmschneider, dean of libraries and university librarian at Virginia Commonwealth University, said: “With this agreement, the VIVA collaborative breaks new ground in fulfilling its long-standing mission to provide equitable access and extraordinary value to students and faculty across the Commonwealth. The agreement adds to VIVA’s exemplary record in investing public funding for maximum benefit throughout higher education in Virginia.”

The pilot agreement begins in 2020, and all participating VIVA member institutions and affiliated researchers are included and may apply for funding of gold open access articles. All VCU faculty of all ranks and graduate students will be eligible for these funds. 

Additional Information
About Wiley
Wiley drives the world forward with research and education. Through publishing, platforms and services, we help students, researchers, universities, and corporations to achieve their goals in an ever-changing world. For more than 200 years, we have delivered consistent performance to all of our stakeholders. The Company's website can be accessed at www.wiley.com.

About VIVA
The Virtual Library of Virginia (VIVA) is the consortium of nonprofit academic libraries within the Commonwealth of Virginia. Members include all of the 39 state-assisted colleges and universities (the 6 doctoral universities, 9 4-year institutions, and 24 community and two-year branch colleges), as well as 32 of the nonprofit independent institutions, and the Library of Virginia. VIVA's mission is to provide, in an equitable, cooperative and cost-effective manner, enhanced access to library and information resources for Virginia's nonprofit academic libraries serving the higher education community. For more information visit vivalib.org.