Happy Tuesday everyone! This week’s message is a reshare of a few topics and news updates from OverDrive that we want to make sure no one misses. We’ll take a break from these weekly messages next week, as many of you are on Spring Break and we don’t want to clog up inboxes too much while many of you are away.
We hope everyone has a relaxing and very well-deserved Spring Break!
Reminder: WSDLC Board Nominations are Open (& a call for Selection Advisory Committee volunteers is coming soon)
Nominations are now being accepted for seats on the WSDLC board from WSDLC Member Representatives at schools or districts in the following CESA areas: CESA 2, CESA 3, and CESA 5.
The Board Operational Guidelines for the consortium call for the WSDLC Board to include one representative from each CESA area, elected by member representatives from WSDLC member districts. To be eligible for a seat on the WSDLC Board, nominees must be their district’s Member Representative. Terms are for three years, and will begin on September 1st, 2023.
You can find more information about the WSDLC Board and read the Board Operational Guidelines on the WSDLC Governance webpage.
The nominations period will run through the end of the day on March 29th. Nominees from CESAs with open seats are asked to complete a brief nominations form. Voting will open on April 8th and run through April 26th.
WSDLC Member Representatives from CESAs 2, 3, and 5 can reach out to the WSDLC Project Managers at wsdlc-info@wils.org to receive the nominations form.
Happening Soon: Accepting Selection Advisory Committee Volunteers
If you’re not in one of the CESA regions with an open seat for the WSDLC Board but still want to be involved, you’re in luck! Later this week, we’ll be sending out a call for volunteers to serve on the Selection Advisory Committee! The Selection Advisory Committee recommends the scope and direction of the collections included in the WSDLC, and they advise the project manager and vendors on operational collection decisions, including content to be included and budget allocations, as directed by the Board and Collection Development Policy.
The WSDLC Board will review the list of volunteers at their April meeting, and committee members will be appointed in order to have a diversity of geography, enrollment size, and grade level experience.
You can view the full Selection Advisory Guidelines, which includes the committee’s full charge, membership, member expectations, and meeting schedule details, here.
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News from OverDrive
Join the Sora Reading Community Facebook Group!
OverDrive just launched a new Facebook Group: the Sora Reading Community, where you can “Connect with fellow librarians and educators to talk reading tips, tricks and best practices.”
The Sora Reading Community Facebook Group is listed as Private (so you will need to request access before being able to view the page and any posts) and is intended by OverDrive to be a user-led discussion space: “A group for K-12 educators to share book recommendations, literacy tips, and how they’re using the Sora digital reading platform at their schools.” This group just started within the last few of weeks, so there isn’t much in terms of content and discussions yet, but as more and more Sora schools join, the conversations and info-sharing are sure to ramp up!
Update to Android OS requirements for Sora and all OverDrive apps and websites
OverDrive sent out the following message yesterday about changes to Android OS requirements, and we want to make sure no one misses it:
With this update, beginning April 15, 2024, Android 7.1.1 will be the earliest supported Android OS for all OverDrive apps and websites, including Sora.
User impact
After April 15, users with devices running Android OS 7.1.0 or earlier will need to update their operating system or switch to another supported device to continue using OverDrive services. Sora will display an explanatory message to any students visiting the app from an unsupported device.
Our analytics show that usage of Android OS 7.1.0 and earlier has been declining and currently accounts for less than 0.05% of all Sora users. Additionally, Google has discontinued support for these earlier versions of the Android OS.
We apologize for the inconvenience this will have on users with impacted devices. This change is necessary to uphold OverDrive’s standards of security and user privacy and our commitment to delivering a quality experience to all schools and their students.
If you have any questions about this, please contact the WSDLC OverDrive team at wsdlc@overdrive.com.
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Flipped Classrooms: Purchasing is on Now!
It’s March, and this month we’ll be talking about Purchasing! In this Flipped Classroom, you’ll get an inside look at how titles are selected and purchased for the Consortium. You’ll also find more details on how to purchase titles for your Advantage account: learn how to build and manage carts, add content credit, adjust the content access level for your purchases, and read some tips and tricks on how to avoid accidentally purchasing titles more than once (when you don’t necessarily mean to).
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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Coming Soon: 2024-25 WSDLC Membership Renewal Quotes
As of writing this, 2023-24’s Certified Enrollment Numbers haven’t been released yet, but last year they were released on March 21st, so this week just might be the last week that we copy/paste the same message you’ve seen for the last month or so.
We’re checking the WISEdash page multiple times per day, and you can expect your 2024-25 Membership Quotes to arrive within one week of this data being available.
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 in mid-March, and we are checking for it daily. 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/.
