Innovative E-book Program Brought to Virginia Through VIVA

June 27, 2013

Perry Library

Old Dominion University Libraries, a member of the Virtual Library of Virginia (VIVA), announces a new VIVA initiative that provides students at all Virginia public and many Virginia nonprofit private institutions of higher education with immediate and on-demand access to thousands of e-books from premier publishers in the STEM-H (science, technology, engineering, mathematics and health) fields.

The e-books made available through this initiative will support the efforts of Virginia higher education to increase the number of college graduates in STEM-H-related fields, making Virginia's workforce more ready than ever for the jobs of the future.

The VIVA initiative, called "demand-driven acquisitions," will open access for students and faculty to a much larger collection of STEM-H books and materials than could be offered through the purchasing power of any single institution. Students and faculty will be able to find these e-books using the library-provided search already available on their campuses, just as though the libraries owned the materials. However, only those books that students and faculty actually select to use will be paid for by VIVA, guaranteeing a return on each dollar spent in the program.

The purchased books will be added to the permanent collections of all the participating VIVA libraries and will remain a shared resource in perpetuity. The e-books may be downloaded in their entirety to many popular mobile devices, including tablets and e-book readers.

The pilot program will be carried out under a contract with e-book supplier Ebook Library. Publishers participating in the pilot program include John Wiley & Sons, Oxford University Press, Jossey-Bass, McGraw-Hill UK and Wiley-VCH.

Students and faculty will be able to easily find these titles in the University Libraries' catalog.

The addition of these collections was made possible through the generous support of Gov. Bob McDonnell, Secretary of Education Laura Fornash, the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia and funding appropriated by the General Assembly.

For more information contact Pamela Morgan, Collection development services librarian, at 683-4148 or pmorgan@odu.edu.