VIVA, the academic library consortium of Virginia, has negotiated a new two-year agreement (January 1, 2024 - December 31, 2025) with Springer-Nature Group for statewide access to Springer journals. This action eliminates the immediate need for any Springer journal cancellations by VCU Libraries.  

As a member of the VIVA consortium, VCU Libraries will save approximately $100,000 in 2024 for this content, most of which is highly used by our faculty and students.

As part of the agreement, the article processing charge (APC) of $3,544 per open access article will be covered for authors at Virginia institutions, with a limit of 770 articles per year statewide. Specific details about the agreement will be forthcoming from VIVA.

Earlier this year, anticipating possible cancellations, VCU Libraries collected data on use of Springer journals and asked faculty for feedback about the value of these journals to their research and teaching. “VCU Libraries thanks everyone who provided valuable input about how individual Springer titles are important to the university’s teaching, research and clinical care,” said Associate Dean for Collections, Metadata & Discovery, and Budget Tammy Sugarman. “We will retain the feedback and take it into consideration when future journal cancellations are necessary.”

“Securing instant access to Springer journal content for our researchers is one of the many ways VCU Libraries supports the university’s strategic research priorities plan,” said Sugarman.