Good day and hello Tuesday!
The WSDLC is kicking off February with a number of exciting announcements:
- A change to the 2026-27 WSDLC Membership Fee (+ renewal timeline reminders),
- All-New Advantage Bundle Cart Packages, featuring this year’s Youth Media Awards winning titles, and
- OverDrive’s School Stars 2026 is open and accepting submissions!
Also included in this week’s message is the usual fare that you’ll find in the first-message-of-the-month: Last month’s consortium-wide usage statistics along with the new titles that were added into the shared collections; as well as this month’s training topics and materials.
As always, the WSDLC project managers (wsdlc-info@wils.org) and the WSDLC team at OverDrive (wsdlc@overdrive.com) are always available if you have any questions, concerns, or suggestions.
Have a great week, all!
WSDLC Renewal Pricing Update (+ Timeline Reminder)
We know that many schools are currently planning their 2026-27 budgets, so we’d like to take a brief moment to cover the WSDLC Renewal and Pricing process.
To start, we want to share a very exciting update:
In March 2023, the WSDLC Board approved a planned 2% increase in the per-student membership fee for the 2025–26 and 2026–27 membership years. Following a careful review of the WSDLC budget, the Board unanimously voted at its January 20 meeting to hold the membership fee flat for the 2026–27 year, maintaining the rate at $1.68 per student.
The Board also approved a 1% increase in the per-student membership fee for each of the following two years: $1.70 per student for 2027–28; and $1.72 per student for 2028–29. To help keep membership fees low while continuing to grow the WSDLC’s shared collection budget, the administration and project management fee was reduced from $0.25 per student to $0.20 per student.
A big THANK YOU to the WSDLC Board for their commitment to keep the WSDLC affordable for all members. If you have any questions, please reach out to the project managers at wsdlc-info@wils.org
Renewal/Price Quote Availability Timeline
The WSDLC calculates pricing based on enrolled schools’ previous year’s certified enrollment numbers as reported to DPI and made available in WISEdash. For calculating 2026-27 costs, we will be using FTE counts from the 2025-26 academic year. This information is typically released by DPI in early March, which means WSDLC 2026-27 price quotes will be available in late-March 2026.
The cost for for the 2026-27 WSDLC membership year is $1.68 per enrolled student, based on schools’ 2025-26 FTE counts as reported to DPI.
Once DPI releases the certified enrollment data for the 2025-26 school year, we will be able to begin calculating the cost for each member district. All WSDLC 2026-27 renewal quotes will be sent out to each school/district’s WSDLC Main Contact(s) in late March 2026. The quotes will include a link to the renewal form, where members can indicate their intent to renew, as well as make contact changes and request updates to their district’s access (that is, add/remove access for schools/grades, adjust content access levels, etc).
*WSDLC Members who are also WiLS Cooperative Purchasing Members will be able to review and approve their WSDLC Membership within the MyWiLS portal. Updates to their access will need to be communicated prior to approvals in MyWiLS.
To help you in your planning, as long as your enrolled schools haven’t seen a large change in enrollment between 2024-25 and 2025-26, and you aren’t planning to add/remove any grades/schools enrolled, your estimated 2026-27 WSDLC Membership cost will be roughly the same as your 2025-26 WSDLC Membership cost.
If you have any questions about renewals, please reach out to the WSDLC Project Managers at wsdlc-info@wils.org.
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January’s Usage Statistics
Looking at January’s Sora usage across the consortium:
- 40,175 Audiobooks were checked out,
- 208,479 Ebooks were checked out, and
- 13,133 Magazines were checked out,
all adding up to a monthly total of 261,787 titles read, by 49,257 individual students across the state.
View the full calendar year’s consortium statistics as a Google Sheet here.
Download historical stats from the bottom of the WSDLC Year to Date Statistics page.
Learn how to run usage stats for only your district/school:
- WSDLC’s newly updated Training Resources page | Reports section,
- WSDLC’s Flipped Classroom: Usage Statistics,
- OverDrive Resource Center’s training videos, and/or
- OverDrive’s self-paced View Sora Activity training module
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All New WSDLC-Exclusive Advantage Bundle Carts: Youth Media Awards Titles
Exclusive for WSDLC Member schools, four brand new Advantage Bundle Carts have been curated and are available for purchase! And for February 2026, The WSDLC’s Digital Content Specialist, Beth Saxton, has once again built carts around this year’s Youth Media Award winning titles.
February 2026’s Youth Media Awards Titles Bundles
Newbury, Caldecott, and Printz Titles | 16 titles | $513.07
Best of Youth Media Awards – Elementary School Titles | 22 titles | $500.07
Best of Youth Media Awards – Middle School Titles | 15 titles | $506.04
Best of Youth Media Awards – High School Titles | 16 titles | $503.32
WSDLC February 2026 Youth Media Awards Titles Order Form: Reach out to the WSDLC Project Managers at wsdlc-info@wils.org
*Note: These lists are not customizable for ordering. Please reach out to the OverDrive team at wsdlc@overdrive.com for additional options.
When you’re ready to purchase any of these packages, you can submit your order through the linked Google Form order form.
When completing the form, you’ll have the opportunity to specify in you’d like your purchase(s) to billed by invoice, issuing a PO, or by content credit that you already have deposited in your Advantage Account(s).
If you have any questions on purchasing, please reach out to the OverDrive team at wsdlc@overdrive.com.
What are Advantage Bundle Carts?
Every few months, the WSDLC’s dedicated Digital Content Specialist Librarian at OverDrive, Beth Saxton, identifies collections of titles and prepackages them into sets that WSDLC members can purchase for only their students just by completing a quick Google Form. No thinking about how to best leverage your budget, no going through reports and lists to identify certain titles, and no logging in to OverDrive Marketplace. Just a simple, straightforward way to reduce your students’ wait times on the titles they want most. If building up your school’s Advantage offerings in Sora is something that always gets set aside for another time, Advantage Bundle Carts are here was a way to make things at least a little bit easier for WSDLC members.
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New Titles Added in January
Last month, 236 completely new titles were added into the shared collection!
- 47 Audiobooks: 5 Lower Elementary; 10 Upper Elementary; 9 Middle School, 15 Lower High School; and 8 Upper High School
- 189 Ebooks: 61 Lower Elementary; 52 Upper Elementary; 27 Middle School; 36 Lower High School; and 13 Upper High School
Of these new titles, there are:
- 46 subject areas, the top five being: Juvenile Fiction (129), Juvenile Literature (115), Young Adult Fiction (55), Fantasy (41), and Young Adult Literature (36)
- 37 Publishers, the top five being: Random House Inc (34), HarperCollins Publishers Inc (26), Books on Tape (20), Penguin Group (USA) Inc (19), and Simon & Schuster Inc (18)
- 8 lending models: 96 OC/OU, 83 MA (12mo/OU), 30 MA (24mo/OU), 19 MA (26 checkouts/OU), 13 MA (100 checkouts/CU), 3 MA (25checkouts or 24mo/OU), 1 MA (52 checkouts or 24mo/OU), and 1 CPC
*Learn more about OverDrive’s Lending Models with the WSDLC’s newly updated Training Resources page | Purchasing section
View the full title list (with format and CAL) as a Google Sheet here.
(This Google Sheet also includes the new titles added each month, so if you ever miss a month, we’ve got you covered!)
You can find more information, including the Collection Development policy and a Statement on the WSDLC Collections, on the Collection Information and Circulation Policies page on the WSDLC website.
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February’s Self-Paced Training Topic Materials: Managing Holds
February’s self-paced training topic is Managing Holds!
Monthly training topics are intended for WSDLC members who are new to the WSDLC, as well as those who might be in need of reminders on a certain topic, might by looking for inspiration, or just want to see if there’s anything new.
- Flipped Classrooms: Managing Holds – This month, learn more about the three best ways to manage holds, why it’s something you’d want to do, and read an overview on what the consortium does to manage holds. And if nothing else, you should definitely review the Managing Holds Flipped Classroom to view (and share!) a quirky-and-fun short video a WSDLC Member created to share with her students to help encourage them to retrieve their digital holds. (Trust us- it’s fantastic!)
- Advantage Best Practices: Holds and Metered Access Managers (reach out to wsdlc-info@wils.org for the PDF) – A step-by-step walkthrough on what these tools are, how you can set them up, and how to make them work for you; put together by the WSDLC’s Sora/OverDrive Digital Content Library Beth Saxton! (This was shared earlier this membership year, but it’s definitely worth sharing again.)
- Current Holds Report | WSDLC Training Resources page – Information and links to how- and why- you can run a current holds report via your OverDrive Marketplace account.
- OverDrive’s Resource Center – A collection of ready-to-use outreach materials that schools can download and use immediately, from OverDrive.
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OverDrive’s School Stars is Back and Open for Submissions!
Has your school done some Sora-related marketing/promoting/sharing this school year that you’re proud of? Did you create a really cool-looking bulletin board or a social media post that got a lot of traction, or did your library host an event that included WSDLC’s digital materials and got students logging in to Sora? Whatever it is, share your idea with other Sora users worldwide!
OverDrive’s global contest, School Stars, celebrates the variety of ways schools promote Sora and is accepting submissions! There are FIVE different categories to enter:
- Best in Visual/Virtual Display or Bulletin Board
Share your best visual or virtual Sora display. This could be anything from a compelling Zoom background to a unique bulletin board or towering display case. - Best in Social Media
Share how you promoted Sora across your social networks (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram etc.) to engage your school community. - Best Ongoing Outreach
Have you promoted Sora through ongoing outreach? Share how you’ve spread the word, whether by engaging parents and guardians, gaining faculty or admin support, or inspiring students. “Ongoing outreach” can mean a month-long theme, a special activity, or a year-round initiative to boost Sora engagement. - Best Use of Sora in the Classroom
Show us how you have integrated Sora into the classroom to support your learning objectives with lessons, activities, or assignments.
WSDLC Project Manager Note: We’ve heard from so many members in the past few months- from chatting with you at the SLATE conference, to email exchanges, to other serendipitous meetups in the community- and we KNOW there are MANY of you who have done AMAZING things that fit this category! - Best Student-Made Submission
Sora’s impact on your students fuels our work. Share how your students have shown their love for Sora and spread that love to their classmates. Maybe it was a fun video, presentation, or even a song! We welcome all mediums.
And this year, there will be 16 winners(!), taking in at least $100 in content credit!
If you’ve done any promotional work this school year (July 2025 – Time of entry), consider entering this contest! We say this often, but it always rings true: no accomplishment or action is too small to enter!
Learn more about School Stars 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/.
