Whether you’re at a district or school that just became a member; you’re a new staff member at a long-standing WSDLC member district or school; or you just need a refresher on OverDrive, there are great resources here to help you get [re]started!
Knowing the Terms
WSDLC: The Wisconsin Schools Digital Library Consortium (WSDLC) is the opt-in membership consortium that provides access to the shared digital collections via Sora by OverDrive.
OverDrive: The parent company that provides support for WSDLC members and the Sora reading platform.
Sora: The platform/app that students use to access the digital collections.
Marketplace: The “backend” or online portal where school library staff can purchase additional digital content for only their students, run usage reports, and curate and customize their students’ Sora experience.
Advantage: This can refer to Advantage Account or Advantage Purchasing. Either way, Advantage refers to each district’s or school’s Marketplace account that connects to your school’s unique settings, curation, and collection.
Content Access Levels: There are five Content Access Levels (CALs), which may also be referred to as Collections, of materials: Lower Elementary, Upper Elementary, Middle School, Lower High School, and Upper High School. Digital materials are made available for students to checkout from one of these five collections, based on ratings from trusted review sources. WSDLC member schools and/or grade levels can be allowed access to the CAL(s) that fit that district and students best.
WSDLC Contact Information
WSDLC Project Managers:
wsdlc-info@wils.org
WSDLC Team at OverDrive:
wsdlc@overdrive.com
Find more details on who to contact and when on the Who to Contact with Questions page
Where to Begin
Here are the top-three resources for library staff new to the WSDLC to help started with the shared collections:
OverDrive’s self-paced training module
Sora shared collection: Your first 90 days
Additional Training Materials & FAQs
- Flipped Classroom: Getting Started
- Using OverDrive Marketplace to report authentication issues to OverDrive support
- OverDrive’s Sora Help Center
- OverDrive’s Training Center
- E-book Instructions for Students {from Beth Hennes, Marshall Public Schools}
- Tiny Case Study: Library E-Readers Instead of Screens for Ebooks
- September 2020 Back to School Webinar on Sora and Marketplace
Note: This video is a touch outdated- there have been a number of additions to features and tools available since 2020- but it’s still a good overview for what it does cover.
What are my options for authentication?
OverDrive’s Authentication Options for Schools one-pager (PDF) provides information about these options.
Can I get accounts for my staff members?
Yes. They are set up using whatever authentication method the district has chosen. WSDLC members interested in setting up staff accounts can contact Amanda Lawman at wsdlc@overdrive.com.
It takes too many steps to log in! It’s too difficult for our youngest students to log in! What can we do?
You have some options:
- Have your students link directly to the WSDLC using the Sora browser version (https://soraapp.com/library/wsdlcwi). They would simply select their school from the list and log in using their school credentials.
- To make it easier for your students to set up Sora using the app version, you can use a setup code that is specifically for your district or school. Students would use this instead of the WSDLC code (wsdlcwi). Then, students can select their district or school from the list and log in with their school credentials.
- School/District login pages from https://soraapp.com/library/wsdlcwi have stable links as well! When linking to the Sora login page or creating QR codes to the login page, you can navigate to your school’s unique login page, then grab that URL to share/link out.
- Consider using User Login Manager for your youngest students. You can set up short user names (as few as 5 characters) with the same password for all students. You can implement this for any grades you choose while keep your existing authentication for the other grades.
How does OverDrive know what collection(s) a student should have access to?
When your school is set up on OverDrive, you’ll let them know two things
- What field in your student information has the student’s grade level, graduation year, or other data you would like to use to determine what collections they have access to.
- How the values in that field link to what collection(s) they should have access to.
For example, let’s say you have a field in your student information called “grade level”. The values in that field for your elementary school are “K”, “1”, “2”, “3”, “4”, or “5”. You’d like your K-4 students to have access to the Upper Elementary collection, and your 5th grade students to have access to both the Upper Elementary and Middle School collections. You would let OverDrive know that the field you would like to use to set collection access is called “grade level” and if the field is set to “K”,”1″,”2″,”3″, or “4”, that student should have access to the Upper Elementary collection and if the field is set to “5”, that student should have access to both the Upper Elementary and Middle School collection.
These settings can be changed at any time.
What if I want a specific student to be able to access a different collection than the rest of their grade?
Whether or not you will be able to do this and how it is done is dependent on your authentication method. You may also be able to use the Title Assign tool to achieve this.
Please reach out to the WSDLC team at OverDrive at wsdlc@overdrive.com for help with these options.
I’m receiving all of these emails about the shared collection (holds, purchasing, etc). How do I make them stop?
In order to stop receiving email notifications about the shared collection, login to Marketplace, select the “News” dropdown and then select “Notification preferences”.
Once there, scroll to the bottom and make sure the shared collection notification options are switched to “No” (you’ll still want to receive your own Advantage collection notifications).