Weekly Message: February 13th, 2024

Happy Tuesday! Now that it’s the second week of February, we’re providing you all with a list of the new titles that were added to the shared collections in January. We’re also sharing reminders about when schools can expect their 2024-25 pricing quote (hint: we’re anticipating mid-March), February’s Flipped Classroom topic, and the annual membership survey.

New Titles Added in January

Last month, 397 completely new titles were added in to the WSDLC shared collections!
Of these titles:

  • 338 are Ebooks; 49 are Audiobooks; and 10 are Magazines
  • 120 are Metered Access titles; 183 are One Copy/One User titles; and 94 are Simultaneous Use titles
  • 84 are titles that have been added into the Comics and Graphic Books collection
  • The top 10 subjects added are:
    • Young Adult Fiction: 138 titles
    • Juvenile Fiction: 135 titles
    • Juvenile Literature: 114 titles
    • Comic and Graphic Books: 107 titles
    • Young Adult Literature: 102 titles
    • Fiction: 80 titles
    • Fantasy: 43 titles
    • Humor (Fiction): 40 titles
    • Romance: 38 titles
    • Juvenile Nonfiction: 32 titles

A complete list of all the new titles added in January, along with their format and content access level(s), are attached to this email as both an .xlsx file and a PDF file, and can also be viewed as a Google Sheet here.

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Reminder: Complete the Annual WSDLC Membership Survey

The 2024 WSDLC Member Survey is an opportunity for member schools and districts to provide valuable feedback to the WSDLC Board and Project Managers: what do you love about the WSDLC and Sora; how is your school/district using the collections; do you have any pain points; and what kinds of updates would you like to see from Sora and the WSDLC in the future. Responses will be used to help the WSDLC Board further develop the Consortium and the OverDrive service.

The link for the survey has been sent to all WSDLC members via email; if you did not receive the survey, please reach out to the WSDLC Project Managers at wsdlc-info@wils.org to have the link sent to you.

Thank you again for your time and thoughts!

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Flipped Classrooms: Managing Holds

February is here, so it’s time for another topic in the WSDLC’s Flipped Classroom series! This month, we’re talking about Managing Holds. Learn how to make the most of your Advantage purchases, and take a look at some of the features and programs OverDrive and the WSDLC employ to get the books your students want into their hands sooner. There is also an excellent marketing resource regarding holds created by one of our members!

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 who may help 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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Heads Up: 2024-25 WSDLC Membership Renewal Quotes

We know that many of you are beginning to work on your budgets for the upcoming year, secure POs, and plan your subscription renewals, so we want to make sure we’re keeping all of you up-to-date with where we are in the renewal/quote process for the 2024-25 WSDLC membership year.

WSDLC Project Managers aren’t able to provide exact cost quotes for 2024-25 quite yet, as we use the previous year’s certified enrollment numbers as reported to DPI to calculate those costs. DPI hasn’t made that information available via WISEdash quite yet, but this data typically becomes available by mid-March. Once the 2023-24 school year data is available, we will be able to begin calculating the cost for each member district, and will email quotes to each school/district’s Main Contact within one week. (Not sure who your Main Contact is? You can reach out to us at wsdlc-info@wils.org to find out!)

To help you in your planning, as long as your school/district hasn’t seen a large change in enrollment between 2022-23 and 2023-24, your estimated 2024-25 WSDLC Membership cost will be roughly the same as it was for 2023-24.

​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 2024-25 WSDLC membership year, we will be using the FTE data for 2023-24. We will take the FTE for your enrolled grades, and multiply this by $1.65 to get your 2024-25 membership year cost.

As a reminder, in March 2023, the WSDLC Board approved keeping the cost per student steady for 2024-25, with a 2% increase for the following two membership years. The price will be $1.65 per student for the 2024-25 membership year, increasing to $1.72 per student for 2025-26; and $1.74 per student for 2026-27.

*For WiLS MyWiLS Members Please Note: WSDLC pricing is not loaded into your MyWiLS account but will be emailed to you.

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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/.

WiLS Team