Using ISSUU to publish on the web

I noticed UCD library's lovely newsletter on facebook a little while ago. I clicked on it and it opened on the screen in a lovely interactive window, which also allowed comments... this I really liked.

Using my rusty rather than trusty sleuthing skills I found the source of this technological marvel to be ISSUU.com. Caught in a moment of enthusiasm I created an account for the library and merrily started to upload pdf and word documents... Then I started to wonder what the catch was. the good news is there is no catch...

PUBLISHING

There are three options for uploading files:

Click on upload
Select:

1. Upload a file,
2. Upload from URL or 
3. Upload many files 

Batch loading many files is really easy... but if you upload the files individually you get the opportunity to tag them... which makes my little web 2.0 heart happy. 

Tick the 'notify me' option to get an e-mail when you file is ready :)

SHARING

The social sharing options are great: 

Go to 'My Library' and across the top of your library listing are your sharing options which include: 

Blogger, Cite U Like  Delicious, Facebook, FriendFeed, Kindle IT, LinkedIn, Mendeley, MySpace Netvibes, Orkut, Reddit, Research Gate, Stumble Upon, Tumblr and Twitter to name but a few. 

Just click on the file you want to share, click share, select your option (while logged into the relevant account), follow the local app instructions, and you're done. 

Alternatively you can use e-mail and embed codes to circulate your publication: 

The first option when you click on share is the e-mail option. You can e-mail a list of comma separated e-mail addresses, share with friends, or select addresses from your ISSUU contact list. (you have to create it!).  Enter your message, and a link to your publication is included in the text along with a preview image. 

Embedding is straight forward there are 2 options, just copy an paste the html code into your file/s where you want it to appear. 

1. Embed a preview 
2. Embed a link 
1. Link to the publication
2. Link to single page view 
3. Link to double page view. 

Well worth investigating. The library is considering using this to circulated our monthly reads.