August 2, 2015

ISSUU - A Book and Magazine Resurch for Druidic Research

I had seen ISSUU before but really hadn’t paid much attention to it. It seemed to me to be a magazine site that showed magazines that I’ve really never been interested in. So, I just sort of ignored it.

I received another email from them and thought I might want to give it a try and see what it has. First of all, access is free – Free is good. I then searched for “Druid.” As I expected, there was “Druid City Living” and “Druid Hills Outlook.” But, also there was the 1924 edition of Dudley Wright’s Druidism, The Ancient Faith of Britain. All 191 pages of the book were they also. Nice. Passing by some D & D books there was a group of Llewellyn books, including Druid Power, Celtic Tree Magic, and The Wisdom of Birch, Oak, and Yew. I had been talking with a student of mine earlier in the day about Celtic Tree Magic, so I thought I’d take a look at it. Easily readable there were the first 33 pages of the book, covers included. Nice. Just enough to read so you can know if you really want to purchase the book.

Then it dawned on me to search for “Keltria.” Again, success. Eleven publications were presented. Four of them were from the RDNA Anthology books.

Three of the hits for "Keltria" were Ellen Evert Hopman noting that she was the Vice-President of the Henge of Keltria. The books all had the first 30-40 pages displayed. Again, enough to read to know if you want to purchase the entire book.  I was surprised that there wasn't a direct link to purchase the full book on the pages, but that's okay -- I can certainly find them for purchase online.

There were Pantheacon flyers as well as a 198-page March 2011, “Keepers of the Underworld.”

On Issuu you can create “stacks” for your magazines. For example I have stacks for “Druid” and for “Ogham” and can now put my books and booklets into the stacks for future reference. There are many books, magazines, and book extracts that may be of interest when you want to research druidic, bardic, and seer arts.

Sadly, you can’t download any of the books or magazines but you can take a screen shot if you just need to have a copy. Also, knowing the title you can sometimes find a PDF version on the internet as is the case with the Reformed Druid Anthologies.

So, I will definitely add ISSUU to my research sites. My goodness, there are over 40 publications that mention, "cattle raid of cooley." Some, I'm sure won't relate to what I'd be looking for, but I'm also sure there are many I will be interested in.  Be specific in your searches and you can find some real gems.

I think that I’ll add a project to my list of projects to add past “Public” editions of Henge Happenings to Issuu and possibly extracts from Past Keltria Journal. Exposure in additional venues is a good thing. If you use Issuu, follow me and see what I’ve stacked and what I publish over the coming weeks and months.