The Wisconsin Schools Digital Library Consortium (WSDLC) recently wrapped up another record-breaking year, surpassing two million digital checkouts between September 1st, 2025, and August 31st, 2026. Beyond that, the WSDLC collections, which are shared between Wisconsin K12 school districts that opt-in to the consortium, have surpassed 10,000,000 lifetime checkouts since this program began in 2018.
Student usage of the Sora app typically booms in the fall as Wisconsin students enter classrooms, have consistent access to the internet, and are reintroduced to the digital collection during beginning-of-the-year library sessions. Wisconsin students steadily check out materials throughout the rest of the school year, but then the month of May enters the chat. Since 2022, this month has been obliterating all previous checkout records and has seen the highest number of individual students checking out titles. But why May? Wouldn’t it make sense that students are starting to wind down the school year and might start accessing their school’s library materials – even the digital materials – a little less?
In 2022, as a way to help boost engagement before students start summer break, the WSDLC Project Managers came up with the Reach More Readers Challenge, a friendly competition between WSDLC member school districts to see who could garner the largest increase in users between March and May of the current year. Ensuring a lift as light as possible on K12 library staff, WSDLC member schools are automatically enrolled in the competition, meaning the only to-do is to get their students to check out at least one title from the Sora reading app during the month of May. Project Managers and the WSDLC’s team at OverDrive then compare student usage in March against May, and the schools that see the largest percentage increase of students checking out titles are declared the winners. Along with bragging rights, winning schools have also received prizes, contributed by OverDrive, which include Sora stickers, bookmarks, luggage tags, buttons, and Sora stuffies.
With the completion of this event’s 5th year, the WSDLC Project Managers are thrilled to announce the winners of the 2026 Reach More Readers Challenge! Taking first place and the grand prize is Tomah Middle School, with a 13,100% increase in student usage! Second place went to Oneida Nation School’s Elementary School, with a 9,500% increase. In third place is Greenfield School District’s Elm Dale School, with an 8,700% increase. And fourth place was secured by Osseo-Fairchild School District Elementary, with a 7,600% increase.
We’d be remiss if we didn’t also shout out Fall Creek School District’s Pre-Elementary School, which is receiving an honorable mention and prize pack from OverDrive. While this school didn’t make it into the top ten schools when we looked at the percentage increase between March and May, what they did do is engage their full student population! Noticing that they went from 10 users in March to 195 users in May, we knew that this school needed to be honored as well. This also shined a light on accomplishments that might be getting overlooked with the current method of calculations, so 2027’s Reach More Readers Challenge will see a tweak in how winners are determined; or maybe additional categories will be added. Stay tuned to find out!
Student usage of the shared digital collections available through the WSDLC continues to grow. And since the Reach More Readers Challenge began in 2022, this growth has also been seen during the summer months, showcasing how this program is doing what it was designed to do: reminding students of this resource before they leave the classroom, allowing them another way to read all summer long.
