Why should I consider joining the Sora HVLA consortium? 

By pooling resources with other member schools, your students will benefit by getting a larger selection of titles than you could purchase alone. The more HVLA schools that join, the more robust our collection will be!

Who can join the consortium?

This consortium is exclusively for members of the Hudson Valley Library Association (HVLA). It will benefit collections that are brand new as well as established digital collections. More information about HVLA and membership can be found here: https://hvlaonline.org/

Can I register just one division (for example, my middle school grades)?

Consider registering the entire school. This approach offers the benefit of a simpler process and helps foster positive momentum among a larger community of users and titles.  If you are only able to enroll a single division at this time, however, it may be possible. This depends in part on how you provide authentication information to OverDrive. Our OverDrive representatives can provide more insight.

What if I can't register by the deadline? Do I have to wait a year?

Stay tuned! We hope that there will be another opportunity later in the year, but this is not guaranteed. If you would like to be kept in the loop about possible registration opportunities, please email us.

Your Overdrive Sora Team

Kristen Hein – Account Manager – khein@overdrive.com

• Invoicing, Purchasing, Marketplace, Sora 

• Please include your school information, Purchase Order Number, and any other pertinent information to your question. 

Cara Leach – Product Support Specialist – cleach@overdrive.com

• Authentication, Login Issues, MARC Records, Tech Issues 

• Please include Sora username, screenshots, error message information, and any other pertinent information to your question.  

Ann McWilliams-Piraino – Digital Content Librarian – amcwilliams-piraino@overdrive.com

• Carts, Holds, Curation, Title-Specific Issues 

• Please include title, author, ISBN number, Cart Name, and any other pertinent information to your question. 

Does your school also have their own Sora account that is independent from the consortium?

Inquiries for individual school accounts can be directed to asksora@overdrive.com

What is an Advantage Account? 

OverDrive's Advantage program lets members of the shared consortium collection to purchase additional titles for their school's use only. It's a great way to customize your digital collection based on your students' interests and reduce wait times for popular books.

Resources on an Advantage Account

• 1. • Advantage for Schools 

Accessing your Sora-HVLA Advantage Account

• Every school has an Advantage Account setup. Login with your username that contains .adv. in the middle. 

Example: hvlany.adv.khein

What You Can Do With Your Advantage Account  

• Curate: Create and publish automated and curated collections. 

• Smart List: Create Smart Lists that automatically build carts based on your chosen criteria. 

• Title assignments: Assign titles in your collection to specific users for a set period of time. Learn more about title assignments. 

• Local content: Upload and publish Local Content (your own ebooks, and audiobooks). User can also edit, delete, add formats, or delete formats for existing Local Content. 

• Content access levels: Restrict the ability to borrow and sample certain titles to specific groups of end users. Learn more about content access levels. 

• Purchase: Purchase carts and content credit, and add titles from different lending models. Users with this permission will also receive email notifications about your digital collection (e.g., notifications about expiring Metered Access titles). If you enable this permission, you'll be required to choose a billing account for that user's purchases. 

• Create, View or Delete carts: Browse and search for content in Marketplace, create new carts, view other users' carts, and edit unlocked carts.  You can also delete unlocked carts.

• Holds Manager: Create Holds Manager plans that automatically create or purchase carts based on titles with holds. 

• MARC records: Retrieve MARC Express files from the MARC Express deliveries page. Handle settings and subscriptions for MARC records. 

• End-user support: Manage user holds, return borrowed titles from users' accounts, merge old and new user IDs, reset users' download links, and see information about the requests your users have submitted to OverDrive Support. 

• Reports: Access the Insights tab to view summary information, run reports, and see the Trends page.  

• Manage invoices: View invoices, pay invoices in Marketplace, and set invoice frequency for a billing account. 

Sora HVLA Marketplace Account Troubleshooting 

Logging into Sora HVLA Collection Marketplace Account:

Click here to login with your username containing .adv.

Example: hvlany.adv.khein 

If you forgot your password, reset it here and look in your inbox, spam, or junk folder for an email from donotreply@overdrive.com to reset the password.

Still having issues? Contact Kristen at khein@overdrive.com
  

Consortium Marketplace permissions

Reports: Access the Insights tab to view summary information, run reports, and see the Trends page. 

Manage invoices: View invoices, pay invoices in Marketplace, and set invoice frequency for a billing account. 

Download MARC records: Retrieve MARC Express files from the MARC Express deliveries page.
  

How to Download Custom MARC Records 

You can order custom MARC Record files of any titles that you would like. Follow these steps in Marketplace: 

• 1. Go to Insights -- Title Status and Usage  

  2. Run a report based on the parameters you would like (you can filter based on advantage titles, audience, etc.).  If you have ISBN numbers from a recent order you can search based on those as well.  

  3. After you run the report, click “create worksheet.” This will open an excel file 

  4. Copy all of the “Title IDs” from the column by clicking the first one, scrolling to the bottom, holding shift, and clicking the last one then copy.  

  5. Back in Marketplace go to Admin -- MARC Express Deliveries -- Create Custom File Button -- Create File Button 

  6. Paste the Title IDs into the pop-up box and click “create file”  

  7.  You can see the progress of your order under the “creation status” column. When ready, check the box, and hit “download files 

How to View the Contract Renewal Invoice

1. Once logged into your Sora HVLA Advantage Account, go to Billing > View Invoices.

2. In the grey section at the bottom of the page, select 'Search Invoices.'

3. In your search menu, make sure the parameters for period type are set to 'Last,' '30' and 'Days.'

4. Review all other reporting options. By default, invoices will show as unpaid.

5. Click Update. Your invoice will begin with 10709-00.

How to View any Advantage Account Invoices

1. Once logged into your Sora HVLA Advantage Account, go to Billing > View Invoices.

2. In the grey section at the bottom of the page, select  'Search Invoices.'

3. In your search menu, set the parameters for period type according to your preferred date range.

4. Review all other reporting options. By default, invoices will show as unpaid.

5. Click Update. Your invoice will begin with 10709-10 and note “Advantage” in the name.

Use the self-paced curriculum handout specially customized for Sora HVLA consortium members. Learn how to access your school's Sora activity by using the Insights tab, and what types of data are available in Marketplace reports.

What is Authentication?

• 1. • This is the login method your school uses to connect students and staff to Sora 

     • OverDrive does not store or edit usernames 

     • Authentication Options:

       • 1. • Google G Suite Integration – Students sign into Sora using their Google school credentials.

            • Federated Authentication – Students sign into Sora using existing SAML school credentials. Common options include ClassLink, Shibboleth, ADFS, and Okta.

            • LDAP – OverDrive connects to your LDAP server. Users sign in with their existing network credentials as stored in your Active Directory.

            • SIP Authentication – Authentication via an existing library catalog such as Atriuum, Alexandria, or OPALS. Special limitations apply to Destiny – contact Chelsea to learn more.

            • User Login Manager – An OverDrive-hosted user portal for managing Sora credentials. As new credentials are issued or statuses change, the school’s designated staff must add, remove, or edit as appropriate.

Troubleshooting 101

Where can my staff and students find Sora help? 

• Students and staff can use this Sora Help page for general questions and usage instructions.  

• Student training modules   

• Staff/Educator training modules  

Login Issues

First Steps: 

• Log out of Sora again via the 3-lined menu 

• Clear all cache/cookies/browser history 

• Log back into Sora 

Second Steps: 

• Ensuring the internet connection is on and strong 

• Logging in on a different device 

• Logging in via an incognito window 

Third Steps: 

• Go to the 3-lined menu 

• Click About Sora 

• Click the reset app button 

Final Step:

• For further assistance, contact cleach@overdrive.com

How to Send OverDrive Your Student Username Securely  

• Please send Sora usernames to OverDrive when inquiring about technical issues. Usernames can be sent to cleach@overdrive.com

• To send the username most securely, please head over to this One Time Secret link, type the username into the box, and generate a link. Please make the link last at least 1 day and do not open the link – it can only be opened once! Just hit copy and paste it into your reply email.

Can I Use Clever to Authenticate Login?

• 1. • Due to a change Clever made in 2021, authentication must be done via one of the methods listed above. Keep in mind, Sora can be added to your school's Clever dashboard for easy access once authentication is set up. Please reach out to our OverDrive Product Support Specialist team member, Cara Leach, for assistance in adding Sora to your Clever dashboard.

Who will select the titles? When will new titles be added?

A specialist at OverDrive will put together title lists for us according to the budget and interests we (HVLA) communicate. Our goal is to aim for titles diverse in every sense of the word with a focus on pleasure reading. The Sora HVLA Consortium Leadership committee will sign off on final approval of each divisional list. Individual schools can further tweak their students' access levels to expand or restrict access. We will reserve some funds to make small purchases throughout the school year of high interest titles as they are published, to keep the collection fresh and vibrant.

Will there be audiobooks? What kind of ebook license(s) will be included? 

Audiobooks will be included, by popular demand! Ebooks will include a mixture of OverDrive's typical single-user type licenses. These include one-copy-one-user and "metered access" (limited by time or by number of checkouts). The type of license is generally set by the publisher and we are unable to influence that. For students, the experience is much like looking at a library shelf: is a copy available, or did someone else just borrow it? If someone is using it, students can put it on hold. We will work with the OverDrive collection specialist to purchase duplicates and renew metered access titles when student usage demonstrates need. The consortium collection will not include class sets of titles, but you are welcome to purchase these for your individual school's use.

Will the collection be skewed to LS? MS? US?

We have observed (so far!) an even mix of interested LS, MS, and US students and will request a collection balanced accordingly. YA titles tend to be longer and more expensive, while LS students often have a faster circulation rate. For those reasons, a "balanced" collection may actually have a larger number of LS titles, but still meet the needs of different age groups equally.

What are the divisions? 

For the purposes of this collection, Elementary = Preschool through 5th grade; Middle School = 6th - 8th grade; High or Upper School = 9th - 12th grade.

Can I choose my own titles as well? Or, I already have an Overdrive collection started! What happens to that?

The Sora HVLA collection will act as one library that your students can connect to, and you will also be able to build and maintain your own collection. This will allow you to focus on making additional purchases according to your special interests, rather than duplicating the same popular titles as everybody else. You will be able to connect students to HVLA, your internal library, AND local public library collections seamlessly!

How do students access the collection? Does it integrate with Destiny?

In general, students access OverDrive through either the Sora app or a specific portal that you can add to your library website. You set their user credentials, so you are able to keep them consistent with the login credentials students use elsewhere in your school system (a guide to authentication options is available on the Registration page). The most recent version of Destiny (16.0) now synchronizes with OverDrive to add and delete MARC records.

May I use FAMIS monies to pay for Sora? 

Yes! OVE522786 is the vendor number and it will allow a school to spend up to $25,000 with OverDrive.

How Do I Purchase a Cart with FAMIS?

Take a look at this visual guide for help.