We received so much great feedback at the WEMTA Conference this year, thank you to each of you who provided some. One topic that emerged was when schools should use Advantage funds to purchase titles vs. when to recommend titles for the consortium to purchase.  We realize that not all members of the WSDLC have Advantage accounts established so here’s an explanation of what an Advantage account is.

An Advantage account is an OverDrive account that is funded through a school or district and allows media specialists to purchase copies of titles the consortium cannot purchase like classroom set rentals, titles unique to a schools curriculum or additional copies of a popular title or format (like audiobooks).  They are seamlessly integrated into the WSDLC collections but will be available for checkout only to the students of the district that purchased them. 

The Recommend To Library feature or RTL, is available to students and staff via the OverDrive website and any purchases made come out of the shared WSDLC funds.  RTL is an excellent way to help build the breadth and depth of the  WSDLC collections. Statistics have shown us that titles recommended by students and staff typically render high circulation statistics. 

To summarize: 

Use Advantage funds to purchase classroom sets and additional copies of very popular titles. 

Encourage the use of RTL by students and staff for everything else. The recommendation links are found on every page of the WSDLC site. 

Please let us know any questions.