Happy Tuesday! This week’s message includes the penultimate topic in the [Re]Introduction to the WSDLC series, highlighting the WSDLC’s history and usage statistics. We’re also including a reminder on OveDrive’s Back to School resources, and an update on where the WSDLC Project Managers and WiLS’ Financials Team are in the 2024-25 membership year invoicing.

Have a wonderful week ahead, everyone!

In 2014, WiLS was hired by the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction to help explore the possibility of a statewide ebook consortium for schools in Wisconsin. In 2015, this project culminated in a report of a process to explore the school ebook landscape, based on a survey of library media specialists to learn about their needs. Just a few months later, leading into 2016, a Think-Tank consisting of library media specialists, CESA 2 and CESA Statewide Network representatives, a school business representative, and a DPI representative formed. This Think-Tank drafted a structure of WSDLC that was presented at WEMTA 2016, and feedback was collected from the community. Based on this feedback, an interim board worked to create the WSDLC’s operational guidelines, cost sharing models, collection policies, and other foundational elements for the project. In February of 2017, an RFP was developed and released, and the WSDLC was presented at the 2017 WEMTA conference. The RFP was then reviewed and finalized in April 2017. In January 2018, the WSDLC went live, with the collection consisting of only ebooks. In early 2019, audiobooks were added to the shared collection; in October 2021, magazines were added to the mix; and in January 2022, comics and graphic novels were made available to WSDLC members as well.

View the complete history, with more details, on the WSDLC website.

Usage of materials available in the WSDLC, along with the collections themselves, have grown immensely since the collections went live in 2018. What began as a 134-district consortium, providing ebook access to 146,933 students, has since become a 250+ district consortium, providing access to ebooks, audiobooks, and magazines to over 400,000 of Wisconsin’s students!

Each month, the WSDLC Project Managers compile consortium-wide statistics and post them to the website. These stats include the number of checkouts each month, broken down by ebook, audiobook, and magazine; number of purchased titles and copies; total number of holds, both historically and
current (as of the start of the month); a count of the individual students using the collections; and the average waiting period. Each quarter, the Top 10 Most Popular Titles with Holds are also reported on.

You can view the consortium’s usage statistics, and download the full spreadsheet, here: https://wsdlc.org/about/year-to-date-statistics/

By logging in to Marketplace and navigating to Insights, WSDLC members can also view usage at the consortium-level, or by using the filters for each report can narrow the reports down to their own school/district.

You can learn more about how to use Marketplace Insights to see your district’s/schools’ usage here: https://wsdlc.org/usage-statistics/

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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 are 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 on their own and OverDrive staff are ready to schedule one-on-one 20-minute sessions to answer members’ questions.

September kicks off the Flipped Classroom training series with Getting Started! During this flipped classroom, members can get an overview of how to use Sora, learn the various lending models, and get a brief introduction to OverDrive Advantage accounts and Marketplace (with more details on these topics coming in later months).

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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OverDrive has a robust collection of resources for how to best leverage your school’s Sora account- from student-engagement ideas to training modules; quick, topic-based videos to lists of sale titles for your school to purchase. And they have everything (and we mean everything) compiled together in a handy Back-to-School Resource page.

Whether you’re new to the WSDLC and Sora or if you need a refresher, this is a resource you want to look over.

 Check out OverDrive’s Back to School Resources page here 

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The 2024-25 WSDLC membership year has begun, and for those districts that indicated in the renewal form that they would like to receive their invoice(s) in September, invoices are being generated and sent by WiLS’ amazing Financials Team. As a reminder, WiLS does not need a PO unless one is required by your school/district. Invoices will be emailed to both the Main Contact and the Billing Contact that we have on file for each school/district, and invoices should be paid to WiLS (details can be found on the invoice).

Districts that did not respond to the renewal form have been automatically renewed for the 2024-25 membership year, and those invoices will begin sending next week.

All of this amounts to the 2024-25 WSDLC membership year starting with:

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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/.