Coop News | WiLS

Apr 2

May 2019 Taco Tuesday: Potluck Edition on Interlibrary Loan

Taco (Talking About Co-op Opportunities) Tuesdays are free and virtual webinars held on the first Tuesday of the month, beginning at 11:30 am, to showcase WiLS’ vendor partners and their products. On odd-numbered months, we host Taco Tuesday Potlucks! Read more

Feb 20

Statista Demo Series

WiLS vendor partner Statista will be hosting a series of demonstrations of their fantastic statistics and facts portal. Join us on any of three dates to learn how this resource can benefit your patrons whatever type of library you may be. The three dates, including connection information, follow. We’d love to get a sense of who might be able to come, so please register for whichever session you’d like to attend! Read more

Feb 19

March 2019 Taco Tuesday: Potluck Edition on Digital Content in K12 Libraries

Taco (Talking About Co-op Opportunities) Tuesdays are free and virtual webinars held on the first Tuesday of the month, beginning at 11:30 am, to showcase WiLS’ vendor partners and their products. On odd-numbered months, we host Taco Tuesday Potlucks! Read more

Dec 27

Introducing Taco Tuesdays!

WiLS Taco (Talking about Coop Opportunities) Tuesdays are free and virtual webinars served in bite-sized pieces so our members can learn about the valuable products and services being offered by our vendor partners. Read more

Dec 17

WiLS Cooperative Purchasing Revamp Report and Information Sessions

We are very pleased to share our cooperative purchasing revamp report with you. This plan is the culmination of our 2018 strategic initiative to revisit our cooperative purchasing service to ensure that it is providing the most important and desirable services to its members.

Some of the key points of the plan are:

The new vision of the cooperative purchasing service includes four primary service areas: awareness, expansion, negotiation, and day-to-day management.
We will continue to narrow the “base” of day-to-day management in order to focus more energy on the other service areas.
We will work to improve response time and other components of the day-to-day management in order to provide excellent service.
Each of the service areas outlined above has a service development priority in the report with more details about our plans for the area.

While the plan isn’t a strong departure from our current service, we expect the changes will redirect our energy to provide members more of what they want and need from a cooperative purchasing service.

This isn’t a report that’s going to sit on a shelf. We’ve already begun to operationalize some of the activities laid out in the plan, and we expect these changes to improve and add value to the service we provide our members.

We’ve scheduled some cooperative purchasing member web meetings in January for mutual information sharing: we’ll provide some information about the report and we hope you’ll share your thoughts with us — not just about the report but our cooperative purchasing service and how we can do things better. The sessions are:

Academic library members

January 14th, 11:00 am – 12:00 pm: https://global.gotomeeting.com/join/993035853
January 22nd, 1:00 – 2:00 pm: https://global.gotomeeting.com/join/578055909

Public library and system members

January 22nd, 2:00 – 3:00 pm: https://global.gotomeeting.com/join/817376237

K12 members

January 25th, 2:00 – 3:00 pm: https://global.gotomeeting.com/join/577311469
January 28th, 11:00 am – 12:00 pm: https://global.gotomeeting.com/join/214583701

Please let us know any questions, concerns (or compliments!) at any time. We view this report as a starting point. We expect to make continuous improvements to the plan based on member feedback and experiences.

Thank you for taking the time to read this message, for being a member of the cooperative purchasing service, and for any information you share with us as we begin this new path of service for cooperative purchasing.

– The WiLS Cooperative Purchasing Team

Aug 14

WiLS Weighs in on MLA/EBSCO Exclusivity

On June 26th, 2018, Barabara Chen of the Modern Library Association sent an open letter to MLA International Bibliography subscribers. This letter was an announcement that as of January 1, 2019, MLA International Bibliography would be available exclusively via EBSCO and EBSCO Discovery Service. This trend toward consolidation and exclusivity is troubling to us at WiLS. We believe it runs counter to the best interests of our members

For that reason, WiLS has joined our colleague consortia around the world in drafting a response letter to the MLA requesting that they reconsider this decision. Not all libraries, and certainly not all WiLS members, use EBSCO Discovery Service. This decision dramatically reduces the value of the resource for those libraries. We’ve already seen potential subscribers choose not to buy the resource because of this change. We’ve heard no response to the letter yet, but will post an additional update when we do.

Jul 10

Issues with MyWiLS Create Account and Password Reset [Resolved]

Update on July 12, 2018, at 4:42 pm: We are happy to report that the issues with receiving notifications about account set-ups and password changes have been resolved in MyWiLS. If you received a notification to log into MyWiLS earlier this week, you may now do so. Please let us know if you experience any difficulties.

We are currently experiencing issues with the Create Account and Reset Password features in MyWiLS. We are actively working on it and we hope to have this resolved soon. We are very sorry for any inconvenience this causes and will update this page as soon as the issue is resolved.

Thank you for your patience!

Jun 19

WiLS Vendor Partner Profile: Backstage Library Works

Since 2016, Backstage Library Works has been a proud WiLS vendor partner and we are happy to share a profile of Backstage’s products and services with our community!

Services Spotlight: Backstage Library Works

It’s all about access. Everything in your library aims to connect patrons to the materials and content they need. Backstage helps libraries like yours build and enhance pathways to patron access.

Our services are tailored to fit your goals across a range of disciplines:

Digitization and image metadata, for everything from newspapers and manuscripts to photo negatives and 3D objects.
Cataloging and shelf-ready processing for any format, in any language.
Database cleanup, record enrichment, and authority control.
Microfilm creation, duplication, and storage.
On-site RFID tagging, for faster implementation.
Inventory Plus, with options for cleaning, weeding, labeling, and more.

WiLS members qualify for a 5% discount on most Backstage services. Contact Jocelyn Dunlop () to get started.

If you’re attending ALA in New Orleans, come see us at booth 2558 to pick up your Backstage conference swag.

May 21

Overdrive and WiLS to Partner on Shared Academic Collection

In case you haven’t yet heard, WiLS and Overdrive are partnering on a shared ebook collection for our academic library members. We’re still recruiting members for this amazing opportunity build a custom ebook collection shared among all participating libraries. Learn more from our recorded webinar and contact Jeff Brunner () for more information about how your library can participate!

Feb 23

Infobase Product Trials

WiLS vendor partner, Infobase is offering free trial access to a variety of products. Give them a try today and see how they’d fit into your collection!