Feeling like it’s time to shake things up and start again. Stay tuned.

Recently I ran into a small problem where all of the titles I purchased through Kobo, a Canadian-based e-book retailer, disappeared from my iPad and iPhone. The titles still appeared on my Kobo Touch reader, and oddly enough, I traced the disappearance to about the same time that I synced all my titles to the ereader.

After searching around for help and not finding much, I came up with the following fix.

First, log into your Kobo account and download the Adobe DRM EPUB file to your computer.

Next, locate your ACSM files in your designated downloads folder. The files will launch Adobe Digital Editions, and your titles will appear in the ADE reader.

Find the Digital Editions folder on your Mac’s hard drive. Chances are it’ll be in ~/Documents/Digital Editions. Once there, you’ll see the EPUB files for your books.

Connect your iOS device to iTunes. Select the device in the Devices list, and then click Apps. From there, look for the Kobo app under File Sharing. Click the app to make it active, and then, drag and drop the EPUB files from your hard drive to the Kobo app in iTunes.

Sync your device, reopen the Kobo app, and voila, your titles are on your iOS device.

If there’s an easier fix to this, I haven’t yet found it. I’ve also not heard anything from Kobo yet on why this has happened, and why I can’t simply sync my library to my iOS devices and have the titles re-appear. This is a kludgy workaround that, for an iOS user, reminds me more of the experience library patrons have with downloading DRM-protected titles from library e-book collections, rather than the seamless experience I’ve come to expect with purchasing items through my iOS devices.

This will be brief.

On Monday of this week, my doctor diagnosed me with rheumatoid arthritis. RA is a disease that affects the joints, causing pain, swelling, and stiffness. It can also cause fatigue, exhaustion, and insomnia. Emotional problems (from having to cope with constant pain) are also a possibility. I’m slowly typing this out with one hand — one finger, really. But I wanted to say something about what was going on with me in a space that would allow for more than 140 characters.

My doctor thinks that all of the problems I’ve been having in my hands, shoulders, and wrists over the last two years were probably RA flare-ups, but I wasn’t tested then, so we really have no way of knowing.

I don’t exactly know what this means other than I’ll have to manage this for the rest of my life, and I’ll have to learn to eat better, sleep more, exercise when I can, and stay vigilant. I’ll be seeing a specialist eventually, and will have more answers afterward. RA, if not kept in check, can lead to damaged joints, and I’ve even read that the life expectancy of RA patient can be shortened by as much as seven years, compared to people who don’t have RA. But I’m not going to think about that right now.

Instead, I’m choosing to stay positive. I have a roof over my head, a job I like, good friends who keep me in good spirits, and a small furry shadow whose antics always seem to make me laugh.

I’m holding on.

(Yes, I know dooce just blogged about Alabama Shakes, but I like the song too, and it fits the current mood. It isn’t plagarism. It’s inspiration.)

For a while now, I’ve been kicking around the idea of doing a series of web-based courses for library staff. I’ve taught traditional courses before in classrooms, and I’ve taught courses over web conference as well, but they’ve always been on the behalf of professional library organizations. What I have in mind is similar, but a bit different.

I’ve taken a few web-based courses from photographers and lifestyle bloggers in the past, and while I’ve had mixed success with some of the courses, but that was more about me and the my struggles with depression and anxiety than the courses themselves. Yet no matter how I did in the course, I often leave them wondering whether a similar course delivery method would work for delivering continuing education/professional development for librarians.

If you’re not familiar with how these courses operate, have a look at Karen Walrond’s Gratitude 2012 project and Vivienne McMaster’s photography e-courses. What these courses seem to have in common is that they’re delivered electronically, there’s generally a low registration cost, there’s a fair amount of introspection, self-improvement, and self-directed learning involved, and, especially in Vivienne’s courses, there’s often a social component as well, as participants gather in a central online space to share their work and build community.

The reason these courses are so attractive to me is that there’s a low barrier for entry. Participants wouldn’t need to be a part of a professional organization, and they wouldn’t need to pay hundreds of dollars to participate. I’d intentionally keep the prices on the low-ish side — under $100 for some courses — to make them more attractive.

Ideally, the courses would be offered asynchronously so that participants could complete the lessons at their own pace. If desired, they can share what they’ve learned with me, but the idea here is to get participants to go through the tasks as designed on their own. If participants wanted to share their work with others in the course, I could make sure that a central online repository/discussion space was available where they could do exactly that. The great part about this (for me) is that the participants wouldn’t only be learning from me, we’d all be learning from each other.

I’m not certain whether there’s a lot of demand for these kinds of courses for professionals, but I know there’s a cottage industry of independent bloggers/photographers/communities of practice where this kind of instruction is going on. And I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t looking at this as potential revenue stream as well. Yes, I could absolutely use the money, but more than that, I’m interested in delivering courses independent of professional organizations, so that more people can benefit from the information being made available.

Is there any merit to this? If you’ve delivered a similar course — whether it’s related to libraries or not — what things should I consider before taking this on?

(Obligatory crazy cat lady post follows)

See this bowl?

In it is a mixture of junk food cat kibble and healthier, more expensive natural cat food. The brightly coloured, oddly shaped pieces are the junk food brand, and the cylindrical brown pieces are the natural cat food brand.

The people at the pet store didn’t believe me when I said Ella will eat the junk food and leave the healthy stuff in the bowl, but this is proof — she’s eating around the good food to get to the crap.

She’s entirely too smart.

After discussing Carnie Wilson’s second weight loss surgery on Twitter earlier today, an idea took root in my head.

See, I love riding bikes. I ride because I love it, not to lose weight, something that is obvious to anyone who has seen my daily ride. I bought a road bike last year, thinking that riding it would help me get fitter, faster, but mostly it’s just been collecting dust out on my balcony. You see, the problem isn’t with the bike, it’s with me.

All of the road cyclists I know are thin and super-fit. And it’s not as if they aren’t supportive and helpful — they are — but when I ride with them, I’m very conscious of not being anywhere near as fit as they are, and I worry constantly that I’m slowing them down.

I started thinking that surely there were other fat-bottomed folks in the Vancouver area who might be interested in a fun, supportive group fitness ride for heavier riders. We could start slow and gradually work our way up to 50km/50mi or 100km/100mi rides over the course of a few weeks. I’ve been checking out Selene Yeager’s Ride Your Way Lean training book, and while it’s a bit aggressive, there are other options available – David Yeager’s Ride Fit is less aggressive than Yeager’s, and may be more suitable for people who are looking to set a base level of fitness.

So what say you? Does this sound like something you might be interested in? And if you’re a fitter rider, would you be interested in perhaps serving as an informal coach to help us become more comfortable on our bikes? Leave a note in the comments below!

* I felt this title deserved a bit of an explanation. I’m not interested in pursuing weight loss for the sake of being thin, or fitting into a more socially-acceptable dress size. My focus is being as fit as you can possibly be, at whatever weight you are. It’s not my intention to disparage or discourage anyone who wants to ride to get thin. Not at all. However, my goal with this group is to focus on health and fitness at any size.

I processed this photo using Snapseed, a photo editor by Nik Software. I know that many people pooh-pooh using filters on photographs, but I find it helps me get the look I want from photos where I have a concept or mood in mind that isn’t really possible straight out of the camera.

I won’t go into detail about Snapseed; Jon Armstrong wrote a great review (complete with video tutorial!), and don’t think I can add anything that he hasn’t already covered. I will say that I like it much, much better than Iconfactory’s Flare photo editor, as Snapseed offers a level of control that doesn’t seem to be possible with Flare.

If you’re a fan of Hipstamatic, Instagram, or many other vintage photo apps for your smartphone, and have wanted something that would make it easy to get similar effects from your non-phone photographs, you should give Snapseed a try. There is an iPhone version available as well.

Today, February 8, is Let’s Talk day in Canada, a day for Canadians to join the conversation about mental health. Bell Canada is spearheading the initiative, and will donate 5 cents for every long distance telephone call and text message made on their networks today. Last year, the corporation donated more than a million dollars to mental health programs.

As someone who struggles with mental health issues, I applaud this initiative. I’ve found it difficult in the past to talk about my own struggles, and I know I’m not alone. The stigma associated with mental illness and the perception we have of people who are mentally ill makes a person not want to come forward and speak honestly about their day to day reality. The more that we can do to bring awareness to the effect mental health has on our families, friends, neighbours, and colleagues can only help those of us whose lives have been affected by mental health disorders.

So I’m not exactly sure why this post made earlier today by a local news reporter rubbed me the wrong way:

My initial reaction was “Well, of course we are. Why would you assume we’re anything other than successful and friendly?” The way this statement is phrased makes me think that the person who made it is distancing himself from people with mental illness. In some ways, it reminds me of the kinds of statements people make when they previously held unflattering opinions of a particular minority group, but who later found their opinions had changed through repeated exposure to that minority.

Furthermore, the “friendly and brave” part of the statement, while meant to flatter, smacks of a type of nobility that I find difficult to bear. Using the minority parallel again, it’s similar to the pressures I used to feel early on in my career to be “a credit to my race” and to give the appearance of always being in control, of always being perfect. As a friend of mine said in reply, “There are plenty of folks with mental illness who are dicks (unrelated to illness), same as folks who don’t have an illness. It’d be like saying everyone with heart disease is kind, and loving brave. And that ain’t true fo sho!”

People with mental illness aren’t always the shattered wretches you see on city streets having arguments with the pavement. We aren’t always in lockup, nor are we always dirty or disheveled. But by the same token, just because someone with mental illness *is* one or more of those things, it doesn’t mean that the person is any less deserving of compassion. Folks with mental illness are everyday people. It helps if you treat us that way.

I know that a fair amount of the folks who stop by here on a regular basis aren’t librarians or information professionals, and as a result, I’ve mostly kept the library-related posts here to a minimum.

Today I saw a slide deck that I wanted to share with those of you who don’t use libraries, or whose idea of what libraries (and library staff) are capable of may be a bit out of date. Yes, there are 87 slides, but you’ll go through them pretty quickly, I promise.

In May 2012, it’ll be seven, no, eight years since I graduated from library school. The things I was interested in – content creation, blogging, using emerging technologies, and usability – weren’t a huge part of the curriculum when I started back in 2002. A huge shift has happened in a relatively short amount of time, and more than ever, librarians are talking about user experience and customer experience. Librarians have always hacked information, but it seems to me that a lot more of us are interested in getting our hands dirty with code and making stuff more awesome. People from outside the profession with an interest in open data are looking at us and pointing fingers, asking us why we still keep our information locked away in proprietary silos.

I’m encouraged. I’m excited.

But I still want more.

A couple of years ago, a friend of mine was looking to make a career change, and I suggested that he think about going to library school. The profession needed more people like him – gregarious, outgoing go-getters who bring a new perspective and a different face to the profession (this profession needs to racially diversify like whoa, but that’s the subject of another post). He’ll be graduating this spring, and he’s already working as an academic librarian in Louisiana, and if I can be completely self serving for a moment, I couldn’t be more proud of him.

Libraries need more people like this — more people like you – to work for us. I’m not going to beat the drum for an LIS education, because I have my own issues with the diploma mill mentality, churning out graduates into a market where the jobs are few and far between. What I would like to see, however, is more community partnerships where tech professionals volunteer to build applications for cash- and resource-strapped libraries: something like Google’s Summer of Code, or Code for America, but just for public libraries.

Libraries can make this happen by becoming more open than we’ve ever been before. Not only in terms of space (although that is really important), but we need to identify ways that we can remove whatever roadblocks exist between us and community partners who are ready and willing to help us take on our technological challenges. If there is a community organization that teaches computer courses that target a particular demographic, bring them in on a volunteer basis and let them teach your basics courses for a while. It’ll free up library staff to focus on other things (like community engagement, for example) and to get back to much needed professional development. If we could be guaranteed 10 hours a week to work on a fun project of our own, I believe we would see some truly innovative service models, programs, and technological solutions.

But what’s the best way to reach out? That’s something I’ll be trying to suss out over the next little while.