Happy Tuesday!

*Next Week* Join us at the WSDLC Annual Meeting on Tuesday May 9th, with Special Guest Christina Dorr

All WSDLC members are welcome and encouraged to attend the WSDLC Annual Membership Meeting on Tuesday, May 9th from 3:30pm to 4:30pm!

Registration is open and accessible through this link: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_UBIuZSBPShSnuY6bJWG-Xw

This meeting is open to everyone, so please feel free to share this link with others in your school or district who might be interested in attending this special event! The meeting will be recorded and shared out to all registrants.

We are very excited to welcome as guest speaker Christina Dorr, who will be leading a discussion on Profiles in Resilience: Seeing, respecting, providing resources for, and giving voice to, the youth that live in generational poverty that walk through your doors:

Following Christina’s exciting and impactful discussion, the WSDLC Project Managers will share highlights from 2022, provide an overview of the results of the member survey that was completed earlier this spring, and talk about what’s on the horizon for the WSDLC.

We’d also like to give a huge shoutout and thank you to OverDrive for sponsoring this event!

Thank you all very much, and we hope to see you there!

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April Usage Statistics

The numbers for April have been compiled, and we’re happy to report that as usual, usage is right on track with what is expected:
Audiobooks Checked Out: 18,839
Ebooks Checked Out: 100,981
Magazines Checked Out: 4,438

In March we reported that hold wait times creeped up a little bit, but we were certain that they would drop again in April. And drop they did: the wait times for holds are back to where they were in February, averaging at ~16 days (just over one standard checkout period).

Click here to view the full calendar year’s statistics, which includes detailed information on circulation numbers, holds, and other metrics, broken down by month.

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Reminder: 2023-24 WSDLC Renewal Information Has Been Sent

WSDLC Project Managers began sending out renewal information and pricing quotes in March to each school’s Main WSDLC Contact. This email includes a PDF price quote along with your school’s current access settings, as well as a link to a form where you can let us know your intent to renew, and request updates to your WSDLC Membership. If you have not received your quote, please reach out to us at wsdlc-info@wils.org; we can make sure the quote gets [re]sent directly to you.

A few reminders regarding WSDLC Memberships:

> Price Calculation / Student FTE
Unless you expect a large change in your enrollment numbers for 2023-24, you do not need to report your FTE to us. We determine pricing based on the previous-year’s certified enrollment numbers as reported to DPI and available via WISEdash. (This means that for the 2023-24 membership year, we are using each school’s FTE from September 2022.)
Renewal pricing is the FTE for each school/grade enrolled in the WSDLC multiplied by the cost-per-student, which for 2023-24 is $1.65.

> Invoicing Dates
Do you need your invoice sent to your school before, on, or after a certain date? You can either email us to let us know when we can have WiLS send out your invoice, or you can submit your needed invoicing date right in the renewal form.
You can also request that all of your invoices from WiLS be placed on the same invoice, or to have the text on the invoice be adjusted to make processing run more smoothly/easily for your district’s business department.

> End-of-Year Funds
Are you in a position where you need to spend some money before the end of the year, but are uncertain on what to do with those funds in a short amount of time? Consider purchasing OverDrive Content Credit with your Advantage Account! Content Credit never expires, and can be used when the timing works best for you to purchase additional titles that are popular with your students, or new titles that the consortium hasn’t purchased [yet].
And while you’re thinking about your budget, don’t forget that your WSDLC Membership includes magazines. On top of ebooks, comic books, and audiobooks that your students love, your WSDLC membership also includes access to many popular magazines! The WSDLC collections includes over 80 magazine titles like National Geographic Kids and National Geographic Little Kids, MiniMag, Minecraft World Magazine, It GiRL, Rolling Stone, and so many more. If you’re in a position where you need to make the difficult decision to trim your budget, take a peek at what’s available with your WSDLC membership; you may find some resources here that could fill the place of other, pricier subscriptions.

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In the Community: Upcoming Webinars

*Note: The OverDrive Webinars are not WSDLC-specific, and may cover options/settings that are not available for consortium members.

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WSDLC’s Reach More Reader’s Challenge is Happening Now!

In 2022, the WSDLC hosted a contest aimed at helping member schools market the WSDLC collections in their schools to help reach students before they depart for the summer. It went over so well (there was a 19% increase in usage that hasn’t slowed down), that we’re brining it back again this year!

Every school is automatically entered into this competition; all you need to do is spread the word and get as many students as you can to log in to Sora and check out [at least] one title between May 1st and May 31st!
The school district(s) that have seen the greatest increase in the number of students checking out materials in Sora between March and May 2023 will be declared the winner! Winners will receive some awesome prizes and a year’s-worth of bragging rights.

You can find more information and links to marketing materials, ideas, and QR Codes for curated collections on the WSDLC website.

So get ahead of the summer slide, increase awareness of the WSDLC collections, and maybe even score some Sora swag by encouraging your students to participate in a friendly competition with other schools across the state!

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FAQ: Will Students Be Able to Access WSDLC Collections/Sora Through The Summer?

We get this question a few times each May, and we always so excited to reply with a hearty you betchya! The WSDLC collections and Sora are available year-round, and can be accessed just about anywhere and from any device that can connect to the internet: desktop computers to smartphones; dial-up to wifi; the local public library to grandma’s house; and everything in between!

If students are on the move and/or without a stable internet connection, as long as they have a few minutes of internet connection, they can download titles for offline reading or send a title to an ereader! Below are some how-to instructions and short videos from OverDrive on some ways students can access titles offline:

Not only can the materials be accessed all summer long, there are special summer-only collections available to help support summer reading! Sora Sweet Reads (OverDrive’s annual summer reading program) is a collection that is filled with simultaneous use titles for all reading levels, and will be available May 15th through August 17th.
You can find out more about this program on the Sora Sweet Reads page.

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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/.