December’s Usage Stats ● Flipped Classroom: Usage Stats ● WEMTA’s BoB Registration Closing Soon

Happy New Year and welcome back! We hope that every one of you managed to have a peaceful winter break.

December’s Usage Stats

As is the trend for December, usage last month dropped slightly as students left the classroom and began their winter breaks. But even though we saw the usual and expected dip, usage is still much higher this time of year than it had been in previous years.

Not only this, but the 2021 calendar year saw over 1 million total checkouts (1,044,584 and still counting*), nearly equaling the total number of checkouts from 2018-2020 combined (1,064,057). Hot dang!

*OverDrive’s reporting does not count circulation until the title has been returned. Titles checked out in late December that are still in use aren’t included in this total.

You can download the full calendar year’s statistics .xlsx spreadsheet, which includes detailed information on circulation numbers, holds, and other metrics, broken down by month, at the bottom of the WSDLC Year to Date Statistics page.

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Flipped Classrooms: Usage Statistics Has Begun!

With a new month (and a new year) comes a new flipped classroom! This month we’ll be taking a look at Usage Statistics by utilizing Marketplace Insights. Insights is the area of your Marketplace account where you can run a variety of reports including, but certainly not limited to, the titles and formats that are getting checked out, what’s being purchased, how many holds are on titles, and how your students are interacting with Sora. You will also see how you can break down these reports to view usage at the consortium level, by only your school (Branch), or at the Advantage level.

Get started on Flipped Classroom: Usage Statistics today!

But wait, there’s more! This month’s training opportunity also comes with a Tiny Case Study! In January 2020, we heard from Jennifer Peterson at Menasha School District on some best practices and preparation for how to get students using your eBook collection:

Getting Buy-in from Key Stakeholders (January 2020) –Jennifer Peterson, Menasha Joint School District

Description: You finally have ebooks, but now how do you get people to start using them? Who should you start with? How do you spread the word and garner interest?

Learn more about our Tiny Case Studies by visiting the WSDLC website at https://wsdlc.org/training/tiny-case-studies/

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WEMTA’s Battle of the Books – Registration Closes Soon

Registration for this year’s Battle of the Books is ending on January 15th. If your school hasn’t put together a team yet, you still have some time!

What is WEMTA’s Battle of the Books? BoB is an online trivia competition for K-12 students across the state. There are three divisions for students to compete in: Elementary, Middle, and Senior. Students can form teams of 2-4 people, and between them read from a list of 20 books. From February 7th-25th, students have the opportunity to participate in “practice battles”, and the official Battle of the Books runs from February 21st-25th.

To help support students participating in the Battle of the Books, the WSDLC has purchased additional copies of both ebooks and audiobooks of many of the titles on this year’s reading lists. If your library doesn’t have some titles or not enough copies of the titles, give the shared collection a look; if it’s available in a digital format, it’s there for your students!

You can find out more about the Battle of the Books, and register your school’s team, on the Battle of the Books webpage: https://sites.google.com/wemta.org/battle/home

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The WSDLC project managers and the team at OverDrive are always available if you have any questions, concerns, or suggestions.

Not sure who to contact? Check out this handy guide on the WSDLC website: https://wsdlc.org/who-to-contact-with-questions/.

Thank you all for another magnificent [calendar] year, and stay safe out there!