This quarter, the Heard Libraries advanced our mission on every front: expanded access to knowledge, enriched the student experience, and grew our role as a national and international leader in digital innovation and preservation.
We signed new open access publishing agreements with 13 additional publishers, including Springer Nature and the American Medical Association, bringing our total to 40 transformative agreements that now support more than 2,000 Vanderbilt authors annually. These efforts are not just about access but impact: We’ve generated over $4 million in annual cost savings for the university and the medical center while exponentially increasing the global visibility of Vanderbilt research. Notably, Vanderbilt became the first private university and the first individual institution in the U.S. to establish a direct open access publishing agreement with Springer Nature, which includes Nature titles (also worth noting, the first publication with this agreement in place has amassed more than 40,000 views in one month)—marking a major milestone in our national leadership and evidence of the impact of our applied OA strategy.
At the same, we’ve deepened our commitment to student success. With 30 new Buchanan Library Fellows funded this quarter alone and the launch of the Next Level Launchpad, our pilot program for career readiness and skills recognition, we are redefining what a campus job in the library can mean. Our programs are becoming models, as two of our graduate mentors published this work in a national journal focused on first-gen student achievement.
Our community-facing initiatives also continue to thrive. From partnering on Dark Testament to hosting author Sara E. Johnson and supporting the Black Atlantic Speaker Series, we are investing in programming that fosters sustained dialogue around history, justice and free expression. Looking ahead, we’ll mark the centennial of the Scopes trial and celebrate the completion of the Lamar Alexander Papers digitization.
Behind the scenes, we’re continuing to bolster our excellence in digital preservation methods with the rollout of ArchivesSpace 4.0 and our upcoming hosting of the inaugural Digital Preservation Coalition Americas Members Forum. Vanderbilt is fast becoming a key node in the international digital preservation network.
These impacts aren’t isolated; they are part of a larger strategy to position the Heard Libraries as a dynamic engine for scholarship, learning, innovation and community.
.lateef img:hover {
opacity 0.5
}
Objectives and Key Results
1
To date, the Heard Libraries have facilitated 40 transformative open access publishing agreements, affecting approximately 2,000 articles, with a financial impact of more than $4 million in annual cost savings for Vanderbilt University and Vanderbilt University Medical Center. For Q3, we signed agreements with 13 new publishers, including Springer Nature, the American Medical Association and Portland Press. Together with existing agreements, authors can select from many high-impact titles, exponentially expanding the reach of faculty research.
Roof shot: Secure agreements with all major publishers, resulting in the highest possible impact.
Moon shot: Move upstream from publications to facilitate open access earlier in the publication lifecycle; establish a dedicated fund to fully support open access initiatives from faculty, e-books and articles that fall outside existing agreements.
2
In Q3, the libraries expanded our commitment to providing students with co-curricular experiential learning opportunities by funding an additional 30 undergraduate students as Buchanan Library Fellows. Two of the Buchanan program’s former graduate student mentors—Kelly Ann Cunningham and Erica A. Scarpitti—published an article in the Journal of First-Generation Student Success about their work with undergraduate fellows to advance initiatives for first-generation, low-income students at Vanderbilt. In addition, nine student employees from the libraries and the Next Steps program participated in the new Next Level Launchpad initiative, a radical collaboration in which students work with the Career Center to identify and communicate the transferable skills and career competencies they learn in their campus jobs.
Roof shot: Scale up the Buchanan Fellowship program as well as use lessons learned to develop the Next Level Launchpad transferable skills program for all library student workers.
Moon shot: Expand the libraries’ experiential learning opportunities to Vanderbilt graduate students via the McCord Graduate Library Fellowship.
3
In Q3, the libraries partnered with Professor Jane Landers and the Slave Societies Digital Archive to host Sara E. Johnson, author of Encyclopédie noire: The Making of Moreau de Saint-Méry’s Intellectual World, for Vanderbilt’s 18th annual Black Atlantic Speaker Series lecture. The libraries also hosted a multimedia art exhibit and a series of events in support of Dark Testament: A Century of Black Writers on Justice.
Roof shot: In Q4, we will support the 100th anniversary of the Scopes trial and celebrate the completion of the Lamar Alexander Papers digitization project.
Moon shot: Become a bonified locus of learning for the Vanderbilt community by doubling our programs over the next year and driving more dialogue and meaningful events that have continued impact across the campus community and beyond.
4
In Q3, Special Collections and University Archives successfully tested and deployed ArchivesSpace 4.0, enabling bulk processing of amendments to finding aids and significantly improving the efficiency of collection description and discovery. Additionally, the libraries have partnered with the U.K.-based Digital Preservation Coalition to host the inaugural DPC Americas Members Forum at Vanderbilt in April. This event will convene up to 50 attendees from Europe and the Americas, fostering collaboration in digital preservation.
Roof shot: The libraries will streamline their use of digital platforms to make the processing and discovery of new collections timelier and more efficient. We will explore addressing our backlog through a collaboration with library schools around the country.
Moon shot: Vanderbilt Special Collections and University Archives will become a vibrant hub of local, national and international collaboration for applied digital preservation.
Aggregation of Q3 stories (January–March 2025)
