Adventures of an instructional librarian
Once upon a time, there were two hikers. We will name them Shylen and Rytu, any similarities to real life people are purely coincidental and are not based on anyone in particular. Anyways, Shylen and Rytu decided to climb Mount Misen located on Miyajima, a small island southwest of Hiroshima, … Read more
Day 1 (arrival day): December 16 We arrived in Kyoto on Sunday evening. This means that not a lot was open but it gave us an opportunity to visit some of the side streets around our hotel without many people around. Let me tell you, wandering around the backstreets behind … Read more
So I made it! I can’t believe that back in August, I was about 109 days out from boarding a plane and heading to Japan. Today, I’m just a couple hours away. The flight to Toronto is a short trip (maybe an hour and fifteen minutes) but the bigger hurdle … Read more
So the Shyla and Ryan Japan Adventure 2018/19 has come to a close. It was an incredible 27 days! The plan is to continue writing posts about my experiences. I have gone ahead and made this a “Featured” post to avoid it getting buried behind new posts. Enjoy the collection … Read more
So the countdown is on, I will be travelling to Japan in just a couple of weeks! [tminus t= “13-12-2018 10:00:00″ before=” style=”carbonlite”]If you are seeing this, it means that I am already on my flight to Japan![/tminus] My itinerary has me flying out of Ottawa’s Macdonald–Cartier International Airport … Read more
In preparation for my trip to Japan, I was on the hunt for the best platform for travel photo sharing. I thought that was going to be Flickr. I had long forgotten about Flickr until I read a recent review about it. They offer users a staggering 1TB worth of … Read more
In this series of posts, I am showcasing a number of games that I designed during my Master of Library and Information Science coursework from INFO 287: Gamifying Information. This post will look at my attempt to create a game in Scratch. Scratch is a free web-based coding platform that helps young … Read more
We’ve all been there, you are out with friends when one of them pulls out their phone. Then you ask one of the most important questions you’ll ever ask, Android or iPhone? It’s a polarizing debate that has the power to destroy friendships. Okay, maybe not that polarizing but let’s … Read more
A few weeks ago this short film appeared on my Facebook feed. I’m a sucker for anything about creativity, so when it popped up, I gravitated toward it. Directed by Daniel Martínez Lara & Rafa Cano Méndez, ALike tells the story of a young boy and his father and their struggle with conformity … Read more
“Those who do not move, do not notice their chains.” -Rosa Luxemburg As we enter Open Access Week I thought it would be interesting to revisit an idea presented by Aaron Swartz in July of 2008. Swartz was an American computer programmer, entrepreneur, writer, political organizer, and Internet hacktivist (source). At age 16 … Read more