Happy Tuesday, and welcome back! We’re keeping things simple this week with just a handful of reminders of topics we want to make sure you don’t miss.

For those schools that import WSDLC collection title MARC records into your catalog, you may occasionally find some broken download links for Sora titles. This happens when a title has been weeded from the WSDLC collections (usually because it’s a Metered Access title that has expired, or it’s an old edition that’s been replaced with a newer edition).

To delete the MARC records of titles weeded from the WSDLC collections from their catalog, schools will need to work with their catalog vendor (Follett, etc) for record removal, as the records are not automatically removed once they are weeded.

We have attached a list of all titles that have been weeded from the WSDLC collections over time. (There are only Adult and YA titles on the list, which have been color coded for ease.) WSDLC Project Managers will send out announcements when additional titles have been weeded.

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The annual SLATE (School Leaders Advancing Technology in Education) Conference is being held next week on December 5th-7th at the Kalahari Resort in Wisconsin Dells, and the WSDLC Project Managers and OverDrive’s Connie Bowman will be in the exhibit hall on the 6th!

For those of you attending, we’d love to see you! Please stop by the WiLS/WSDLC booth (#600) to chat with the Project Managers about the shared collection and have your questions answered (and get some WiLS birthday swag while you’re at it). Then head on over to the Sora/OverDrive booth (#500) to say “Hi” to our very own Account Executive Connie Bowman, and also learn about what’s new, coming soon, and in development with OverDrive and Sora.

What is SLATE? SLATE is an annual conference hosted by Association of Wisconsin School Administrators (AWSA), the Wisconsin Association of School District Administrators (WASDA), and Wisconsin Educational Technology Leadership (WETL). This year’s conference includes over 100 sessions on technology in education meant for a wide variety of educational leaders including Teachers, Principals, Associate Principals, District Administrators, Library Media Specialists, IT Coordinators, Directors of Curriculum and Instruction, and others, focusing on technology in schools and advancements that can be used in the classroom to help students succeed.

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November is Advantage Accounts & Marketplace month for the WSDLC’s Flipped Classroom training series! This flipped classroom introduces the Advantage program and shows how users how they can use Marketplace to make the most of their Advantage accounts.

Want to get ahead? December’s theme is Curation. In this Flipped Classroom, you can learn all about Curation in OverDrive/Sora and how you can create and post your very own curated collections to support your students’ needs and interests.

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.

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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We have another Tiny Case Study to share with you all this month: Graphic Novel Genre Study During Schoolwide Literacy Period, submitted by WSDLC Board Member, Stephanie Judge!

Description: “The Sauk Prairie Middle School has a 35 minute period each day called Schoolwide Literacy. We drop everything and each teacher reads to class for 20 minutes and then students read to self for 15 minutes. In January, we establish genre groups and students select their preferred genre focus. As I teacher, I selected to lead the graphic novel genre group. The problem: How do you display a graphic novel and read it out loud to 20-25 students at the same time?”

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.

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!

You can view all of the WSDLC’s Tiny Case Studies here.

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We want to hear from the WSDLC members on what topics or themes you would be most interested in hearing about at the next Annual Membership Meeting being held in May 2023. This meeting is an opportunity for the Project Managers to get feedback from members, to highlight the achievements and updates from the year, and to share what changes and updates may be coming soon. This meeting kicks off with a guest speaker or a panel of participants, all centered around a certain theme.

Please share your thoughts and ideas for 2023’s meeting in this Padlet: WSDLC Annual Membership Meeting Topic Suggestions

Note about using Padlet: Padlet is completely free to use, but you do not need to create an account to submit your ideas or to comment on / show your support for others’ ideas. Any comments or suggestions made in our Padlet from users without an account will appear anonymously. If you want to avoid creating a Padlet account but wouldn’t like to be anonymous, go ahead and sign your name to your idea.

If you have an idea but want to use something other than Padlet, go ahead and email us your idea at wsdlc-info@wils.org.

Thank you very much!

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If you purchase for your school or district’s Advantage account, you will want to take “advantage” of OverDrive’s biggest sale of the year with up to 50% off on over 150,000 titles through December 31st.

Sale titles include both eBooks and Audiobooks, and you can browse sale titles through several different collections put together by experts at OverDrive, such as 2022 Releases, Audiobooks under $30, Fixed Layout & Read-Alongs, and more! You can also search for titles by access level, format, and/or by genre!

Log in to your Marketplace Account for more information, to view sale titles, and to expand your local collections with titles only your students will be able to access.

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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/.