Hello Tuesday! In this week’s message, we have the recording to last week’s webinar, “Marketplace Spotlight Discussion – MARC Records, Sora Searching, and Admin Tools”, as well as reminders on how you can make the most of your WSDLC Membership. Learn more about Sora MARC Records and if/how to utilize them in this month’s Flipped Classroom; read about how one Library Media Specialist worked to get Kindles into classrooms; an updated list of magazines that are available in Sora; and easy marketing/display tips from two of our Board Members!
And if you’re attending WLA this week, come visit WiLS (the WSDLC Project Manager) in the vendor hall at Booth S208! Not attending WLA? You can still find out more about everything WiLS has to offer in WiLS’ Virtual BOOth!
Webinar Thank You & Link to the Recording
Thank you to those members who joined last week’s webinar, Marketplace Spotlight Discussion – MARC Records, Sora Searching, and Admin Tools! And a very special thank you to Nell Fleming from Wisconsin School for the Deaf and Teresa Voss from Verona Area School District for sharing their experiences, and to Connie Bowman and her team for organizing and facilitating the webinar!
The portion of this webinar that was lead by Connie Bowman at OverDrive and discusses Content Access levels, Audience Level, and Advantage Filtering was recorded and can be accessed here:
Link: https://overdrive.zoom.us/rec/share/auqzUWlHaM8qwMz7I_1oSDI8wxqCaL7tfy1-Jerfp6NZzzv2xWUbBBV79nnc9OjF.XFsNIa-tvD0PxJdq
Passcode: ?w87=NbS
If you have questions about any of the topics discussed, please reach out to Connie’s team at wsdlc@overdrive.com.
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Flipped Classrooms: Last Full Week for MARC Records; Advantage Coming Up Next
What is a WSDLC Flipped Classroom?
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.
This month’s theme is MARC Records!
The MARC Records flipped classroom may be short but it is packed with helpful information for members. This lesson introduces members to the kinds of MARC records available through OverDrive and the WSDLC, and details how these records can be managed and uploaded into the Destiny catalog.
Want to get ahead? November’s theme is Advantage Accounts & Marketplace! This flipped classroom introduces the Advantage program and shows how users how they can use Marketplace to make the most of their Advantage accounts. Learn about Lending Models, adjusting the Content Access Level for your Advantage titles, make the most out of Class Sets, and so much more!
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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Tiny Case Studies: Kindles in the Classroom
The WSDLC Training Series isn’t limited to only the Flipped Classrooms. Some months we also take an opportunity to share Tiny Case Studies that have been submitted from WSDLC Members! WSDLC’s Tiny Case Studies are brief, practical summaries of outstanding things that some WSDLC members are doing that involve Sora and serve as an opportunity for members to share a WSDLC-related problem they had and how they solved it.
During October, we’re highlighting the Tiny Case Study Kindles in the Classroom, submitted by one of the WSDLC’s Board Members, Beth Hennes!
Description: “When offered an eBook, my library users will often scoff and tell me that they “just prefer to hold the book” (which is pretty common and not unique across users). Yet when offered an e-reader, sometimes they warm up to eBooks because the experience is more like a page and less like a screen. However, many e-readers are designed for personal ownership, not just an app you can sign into, which makes them hard to use in a school setting with OverDrive.”
If you’ve done something lately that you’d like to share with the WSDLC Community, let us know! Maybe you’ve put together some creative marketing, started a student reading book club, engaged your school’s teachers on how they can utilize these resources in their classroom, or made a successful case for funding. No idea or accomplishment is too small! You can submit your tiny case study idea by email at wsdlc-info@wils.org or complete the idea form, and we will reach out to you with the next steps!
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Don’t Forget: 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 Magazines collection is made up of all Simultaneous Use titles, which means they are always available for immediate use- no holds or wit times- and includes popular titles such as National Geographic Kids and National Geographic Little Kids, MiniMag, Minecraft World Magazine, It GiRL, Rolling Stone, and so many more! Click here to download an .xlsx of the complete listing of all 200+ magazine titles that are currently available in Sora.
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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Tips From Your WSDLC Board: Display WSDLC Stats Right In Your School
One year ago, two WSDLC Board members shared something really amazing, and quite simple, that they had recently done in their schools to encourage their students to use Sora. And one year later, we are still gushing about these ideas so much so that we want to share them out again!
At their schools, both Peg Billing of Lakeland Union High School and Beth Hennes at the Madison Metropolitan School District began embedding the Real-Time Digital Title Circulation widget from OverDrive right on their websites!
Not only that, but they have also taken this a step further and have the widget displaying on TV and computer screen displays around their schools (not just in the libraries), allowing students and staff to see Sora checkouts and holds in real time! Talk about a high-impact/low-effort way to get Sora on students’ minds and excited to checkout digital titles!
You can grab the embed code to add this widget to your library’s website and/or school displays here:
<iframe width=”100%” height=”100%” src=”https://insights.overdrive.com/dashboards/9910366565f7400f86328f5fc47769d6″></iframe>
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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/.
