Reading Cloud has been designed to introduce students to social media in a safe, managed environment. As such a number of social features are provided which can be enabled and disabled as required.
To access these settings, select 'Settings' from the top of the Management page and then select 'Module Settings' followed by 'Social Settings' from the menu.
Chat
This setting allows users to communicate with each other using the built-in chat facility. This is only for borrowers with an active account on your library system, no one outside your organisation can chat with those inside it.
Facebook News & ID
Enables the Facebook news feed on the homepage & the numeric ID of the Facebook profile you wish to link to.
Twitter News & ID
Enables the Twitter news feed on the homepage & the numeric ID of the Twitter profile you wish to link to.
Public Profiles
When this setting is enabled, the users will be given the ability to tick an option that will allow their blog posts to be accessible by users accessing your Reading Cloud homepage while not logged in.
Safe Search
Enabling the 'Safe Search' option prevents users from being able to view resources that Reading Cloud have deemed inappropriate (content that contains words from a 'banned' word list). Should this option not be enabled, a message will still show but the user will be able to continue.
Marc and Bib1 details
When this setting is enabled, the resource details shown on the Reading Cloud homepage will display the associated MARC tag. This information will be visible under 'More Info'.
Blogs
When enabled, this gives users the ability to write their own blog posts.
Timeline
This disables the timeline for all borrowers on the Reading Cloud (this can be seen on the homepage once a borrower logs in to Reading Cloud). After this is ticked it will remove the timeline items. It can take up to one hour to update.
Status Updates
This disabled the Status Update for all borrowers on the Reading Cloud (this can be seen on the homepage once a borrower logs in to Reading Cloud).
Librarian Email Address
To receive administrative notifications, enter the email address that these notifications should be sent to and tick the box to Allow emails to Librarian.
Show Library Resources Only
When this is enabled the OPAC (homepage) search will stop pulling suggestion from Discovery Online and only use resources catalogued in the Library. This will affect other areas as well. For instance, when you open the Author page, this will no longer show all books written by that author but rather just the books that the library catalogue contains. Searching on Discovery is still available via Quick/Advanced search.
Home Library
The 'My Home Library' section allows users to add their own personal collection of books, DVDs, Games and more to their Reading Cloud account so their friends can see what they have and request to borrow them. The loans are then fully tracked by Reading Cloud so users know exactly who has their books and can request them back when needed.