Reference Question of the Week – 4/11/10
April 17th, 2010
The phone rang and an elderly woman asked,
Can you please tell me when Arbor day is this year? I looked on every April calendar I have in my house, but none of them list it.
I checked the two printed calendars we have near the desk, and sure enough, it wasn't marked on either of them.
For date-related questions, my favorite resource is Chase's Calendar of Events, which we have in the ready reference collection. I pulled that out, flipped to the index and found that this year's National Arbor Day is April 30th.
I gave her the date, then said I too was surprised it wasn't on any of our printed calendars. Her reply made me laugh out loud:
Well, thank you. It was a big deal when I was a little girl, but I guess nowadays if you can't sell something or get naked, no one cares.
Too right.
April 17th, 2010 at 1:20 pm
I saw you listed on page 35 of Library Journal you Mover and Shaker you! — Congrats – and I love your blog!!
April 17th, 2010 at 1:50 pm
LOL
April 19th, 2010 at 2:07 pm
Just now a lady came to our desk asking if today were a holiday. Apparently a website she’d been trying to visit was not doing any transactions because of the holiday.
It did not ring any bells with me, but having read exactly this post a coupla days ago, it occurred to me to wonder whether Chase’s were on our ready reference shelves. It was. This is how I learned about Patriots’ Day, celebrated in your neck of the wood and unheard of here in Virginia.
April 20th, 2010 at 12:28 pm
@lesbrarian: Patriots’ Day was something new to me when I first moved to New England, and I still think it’s sort of odd – however, not as odd as Fast Day in New Hampshire
April 20th, 2010 at 12:29 pm
@Kersten: Thank you – and I’m glad you like my website.
May 11th, 2010 at 4:20 pm
It is probably not on national calendars because each state has their own date for Arbor Day, depending on the climate and when it is best to plant trees there. See Arbor Day Foundation: States and click on your state in the upper right corner.
Love the blog!
May 12th, 2010 at 6:25 am
@Vicki: Thank you for pointing that out – I missed it and I think you’re exactly right.