Community hub, free book store, venue for lectures and debates, internet cafe: the public library serves a large number of roles, some of which perhaps seem less relavent in the new digital age. Perhaps my favourite description of why public libraries are still important comes from the ever witty interweb guru Cory Doctorow: “Damn right libraries shouldn’t be book-lined Internet cafes. They should be book-lined, computer-filled information-dojos where communities come together to teach each other black-belt information literacy, where initiates work alongside noviates to show them how to master the tools... | Continue reading article

Think you are up to date about local happenings? Test your knowledge with our local news quiz, five questions designed to test whether you’ve been paying attention. How to score: 5 out of 5: News stud! I hear The Citizen is hiring… 4 out of 5: Cheater! You work at City Hall. 3 out of 5: Not bad, but you may want to check your #ottcity Twitter feed a little more often. 2 out of 5: Newspapers are dying, but you should still try to pick one up once in... | Continue reading article

Recently we profiled two local photographers who chronicle Ottawa’s music scene.  In this week’s column, we expand our focus to include the numerous other music bloggers from the National Capital Region. Music Writers Most local bloggers probably don’t consider themselves to be journalists or writers in the strict sense of the word.  However, given that many music-related blogs contain interviews, previews of upcoming shows, reviews of new releases, insightful analysis and interesting bits of information, it is fair to say that many area bloggers are producing work that is comparable to... | Continue reading article

In today’s so-called Twitter age, when attention spans are supposedly non-existent and books are seen as quaint anachronisms, it is cool to claim that epic novels are dead. For in a world where 140-characters are all the rage, who has time to read hundreds of pages, let alone invest the mental effort to process a story full of complexity, nuance and wonder? Fortunately for book lovers (and there are still many), English-born writer Edward Rutherfurd puts the lie to the view that epic literary sagas are passé. “People are reading more... | Continue reading article

Jane’s Walk Ottawa, an annual festival of free walking tours held in honour of urban theorist Jane Jacobs, took place last weekend. We got our contributors out on a few of the walks and will be posting their photos and stories here on the site just in case you didn’t get the chance to participate. Our contributor Adria May took her camera on two different Jane’s Walk this weekend. The first tour was Arthur McGregor, owner of the Ottawa Folklore Centre, walk called  Folk on the Street. “Ottawa has been ‘Folk... | Continue reading article

Jane’s Walk Ottawa, an annual festival of free walking tours held in honour of urban theorist Jane Jacobs, took place last weekend. We got our contributors out on a few of the walks and will be posting their photos and stories here on the site just in case you didn’t get the chance to participate. “If you wanna keep it going, you gotta keep it small.” These words of the gregarious Mr. So, owner of the So Good Restaurant, summed up the theme of Apt613’s Jane’s Walk through Ottawa’s eclectic... | Continue reading article

Jane’s Walk Ottawa, an annual festival of free walking tours held in honour of urban theorist Jane Jacobs, took place last weekend. We got our contributors out on a few of the walks and will be posting their photos and stories here on the site just in case you didn’t get the chance to participate. Beechwood Avenue is the heart and soul of Ottawa’s New Edinburgh neighbourhood, a unique street that links upscale communities like Rockcliffe with grittier working class Vanier. Like many once vibrant mainstreets, Beechwood is struggling to... | Continue reading article

Think you are up to date about local happenings? Test your knowledge with our local news quiz, five questions designed to test whether you’ve been paying attention. How to score: 5 out of 5: News stud! I hear The Citizen is hiring… 4 out of 5: Cheater! You work at City Hall. 3 out of 5: Not bad, but you may want to check your #ottcity Twitter feed a little more often. 2 out of 5: Newspapers are dying, but you should still try to pick one up once in... | Continue reading article

The National Capital Region has a lot of blogging parents.  In fact, after viewing more than 600 local blogs, I would argue that there are more family-friendly sites in our region than those that focus on hockey or politics.  With this in mind, this week’s column contains a round-up of family blogs. Recommended Starting Points The Ottawa Mommy Club is a fantastic source of information for parents and anyone else interested in family-related posts.  Their list of bloggers alone has dozens of sites that cover everything from parenting to home... | Continue reading article

Every year Apartment613 works with Jane’s Walk Ottawa - a festival of free neighbourhood walking tours - to give a tour of an area where we love to hang. We pull together some of the business owners we know (and some we want to know better) and ask them the sorts of questions we’d ask if we were interviewing them for the blog. We lead a group of walkers door-to-door to listen in on the conversation. It’s a neat opportunity to see a neighborhood close-up and meet some of the people that we think are... | Continue reading article