Happy Tuesday! For this week, we’ve created a few additional methods for viewing the new titles that were added to the shared collections last month, and we’ve received a walkthrough on how Follett Destiny users can remove outdated MARC records from their catalogs that we are eager to share with you.
We hope those of you that have recently returned from Spring Break and are currently in the midst of Spring Break have found opportunities for rest and enjoyment, and we wish those of you getting ready for Spring Break a peaceful and relaxing time ahead. ♥
New Titles Added in February
In February, 285 completely new titles were added to the shared collection! Of these titles:
- 273 have circulated at least once
- 42 are Audiobooks; 243 are Ebooks
- 186 are in the Juvenile (K-5) collection; 41 are in the Young Adult (6-8) collection; and 58 are in the Adult (9-12) collection
- 241 are Fiction; 44 are Nonfiction
A complete list of all the new titles added in February 2023, along with their format and content access level(s), are attached to this email as both an .xlsx file and, by request, a PDF file. Going forward, we’re also making the New Title lists available as a Google Sheet, which you can view here.
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Watch Your Inboxes: WSDLC Governance Recruitment Details Coming This Week!
Tomorrow (Wednesday March 15th), we will open nominations for WSDLC Member Representatives in CESAs 9 and 11 to serve on the WSDLC Board!
The Board member guidelines are simple, and we try to keep meetings and outside work to a minimum.
- Terms are three years (there are no term limits) and begin on September 1st.
- A total commitment of around 7 hours per year is expected.
- Meetings are held via Zoom, and there are 4-6 meetings per year.
- Information for meetings is shared beforehand via Basecamp to allow Board members to participate in discussions and decision-making effectively.
If you’re not in one of the CESA regions with an open seat for the WSDLC Board but still want to be involved, you’re in luck! Later this week, we’ll also send out a call for volunteers to serve on the Selection Advisory Committee! The Selection Advisory Committee recommends the scope and direction of the collections included in the WSDLC, and they advise the project manager and vendors on operational collection decisions, including content to be included and budget allocations, as directed by the Board and Collection Development Policy.
You can view the full Selection Advisory Guidelines, which includes the committee’s full charge, membership, member expectations, and meeting schedule details, here.
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Flipped Classrooms: Purchasing
During the month of March, we’re taking a look at Purchasing! In this Flipped Classroom, you’ll get an inside look at how titles are selected and purchased for the Consortium. You’ll also find more details on how to purchase titles for your Advantage account: learn how to build and manage carts, add content credit, adjust the content access level for your purchases, and read some tips and tricks on how to avoid accidentally purchasing titles more than once (when you don’t necessarily mean to).
What are the WSDLC’s Flipped Classrooms?
The WSDLC offers a self-paced training series to help new members get oriented (and as a refresher for returning members) with their membership and the Sora collections. Every month, a different topic and set of materials are highlighted to help guide members throughout the school year. The content of these Flipped Classrooms is intended for Library Media Specialists and anyone else that may help to manage school/district library resources, OverDrive Advantage purchasing, and digital classroom materials. Materials are available for members to review independently, and OverDrive staff are ready to schedule one-on-one 20-minute sessions to answer members’ questions.
You can find more information on WSDLC Training opportunities and materials here: https://wsdlc.org/training/
Find the full calendar of self-paced training topics here: https://wsdlc.org/training/wsdlc-training-schedule/
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Quick Reminder: 2023-24 Membership Renewal Pricing Not Yet Available
We know that many of you are working on your budgets for the upcoming year, so we want to keep you up-to-date on the timeline for next year’s renewal pricing. DPI hasn’t released the 2022-23 certified enrollment numbers quite yet, so we aren’t able to begin calculating next year’s pricing. We are checking WISEdash daily for this information, and are hopeful to have all WSDLC 2023-24 renewal quotes sent out to each school/district’s WSDLC Main Contact(s) by the end of the month.
Details on Pricing Quote Calculation
WSDLC renewal pricing is based on DPI’s certified enrollment numbers for the previous academic year. To calculate costs for the 2023-24 WSDLC membership year, we will be using the FTE data for 2022-23. Once we have this information, we will calculate the 2023-24 membership costs, and quotes will be emailed to each school/district’s WSDLC Main Contact within a week. (Not sure who your Main Contact is? You can reach out to us at wsdlc-info@wils.org to find out!)
As a reminder, in March 2021, the WSDLC Board approved a 3% increase for each of the following three membership years, and the price will be $1.65 per student for the 23-24 membership year.
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MARC Records Available (+ Destiny Catalog Record-Removal Instructions!)
The most recent set of MARC records is now available to download as a ZIP file from the WSDLC website! You can find them on the Collections Information and Circulation Policies page.
About WSDLC MARC Records
MARC record files, separated by the three Content Access Levels, are available for WSDLC Members to download quarterly. By making these files available for members quarterly, schools won’t need to spend as much time downloading MARC records from Marketplace and grappling with files from purchase orders that cannot be separated by content access levels (we’re looking at you automated RTL purchase orders). These quarterly updates will also catch any titles that have been updated to a new content access level after the initial purchase and will make sure your school’s catalog matches the access levels in Sora.
OverDrive Record-Removal for Schools Using Destiny (Goodbye Weeded Titles!)
With many (many!) thank yous to our OverDrive Product Specialist, Amanda Izuka-Lawman, we now have documentation from Follett that shows Destiny Catalog users how they can permanently delete OverDrive records from their catalog!
This is a bit of a manual process, but selected titles should be permanently deleted from the Destiny catalog once you go through it. This will come in handy, particularly when you need to remove OverDrive titles that have been weeded or expired from the shared collections.
Follett Destiny OverDrive Records Removal How-To
If you have any questions about the process, please reach out to your Follett representative.
WSDLC Project Managers will share the most recently weeded titles each month, much like we do with the new titles each month. To help you start this process, you’ll find an up-to-date list (as of March 10th, 2023) right here.
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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/.
