In the spring of 2022, the Wisconsin Schools Digital Library Consortium (WSDLC) introduced a a program called the Reach More Readers Challenge as a fun and simple way for participating school libraries to highlight the Sora reading app and the robust collection of audiobooks, ebooks, comics, and magazines it contains to students before they leave the classroom and begin summer break. It was a bigger success than anticipated – summer student usage increased by 6 percent! – and the competition ran again in the spring of 2023. But this year, what started as a simple idea to support WSDLC member schools and help combat the “summer slide,” the Reach More Readers Challenge took on an even stronger relevancy.
In a time of increased scrutiny on library collections nationally, it felt more important than ever to provide an opportunity for school libraries to bring more visibility to the WSDLC collections, increasing the awareness of the variety of resources and formats that students and teachers have available to them. The WSDLC includes over 87,000 copies of ebooks, audiobooks, and magazines that are shared between participating schools, providing professionally reviewed digital materials for students of all backgrounds, interests, preferences, and skills to enjoy.
This year’s Reach More Readers Challenge ended in May and resulted in a 12% increase in students checking out titles across the consortium. Now that Wisconsin students have returned to the classroom, we find that this year was another rousing success: student summer usage increased by another 3 percent! For 2023, a year of record-breaking book challenges, not only has the Reach More Readers Challenge prepared students for summer reading, but it also keeps them reading. On top of that, opportunities such as these can serve as another way for school libraries to share the value of a strong, shared digital collection.