Earth Day - Arbor Day Display

This week Michigan celebrated both Earth Day and Arbor Day.

Earth Day was celebrated on April 22nd. The first Earth Day was celebrated back in 1970. It was spearheaded by a Senator from Wisconsin, Senator Gaylord Nelson. In 1990, Earth Day experienced a resurgence and has now become an international celebration.

The national day set aside for Arbor Day is the last Friday in April, according to the Arbor Day Foundation web site. This year's date is Friday April 25th.

www.arborday.org

Michigan is one of 24 states that also celebrates Arbor Day on the last Friday in April. The rest of the states celebrate on a variety of other days and months according to the best time to plant trees in their states. Most state Arbor Days fall in the months of January through May, although Hawaii's observation of the day is in November and South Carolina's is in December.

The East Tawas Library has had 80 books on display all month in honor of Earth Day and Arbor Day. Books include nature activities for kids and families, field guides to trees, environmental and conservation books, and many more. Please help celebrate these two important days by helping our environment and our world all year long.

"Friday Night Lights" DVD Sets Donated

The East Tawas Library was chosen as one of the initial 36 libraries nation wide to receive a donation of the television series Friday Night Lights Season One DVD. We will also receive Season Two on DVD as soon as it is released later this month.

The donation was funded by the group Save Friday Night Lights. This group was formed by fans of the show who organized a successful campaign to fight for the show's renewal for a third television season.

More information about the group and their current campaign to donate DVD sets to libraries across the country can be found on the following web site:

http://www.savefnl.com/

The group plans to donate DVD sets to at least one library in each of the top 100 television markets. The East Tawas Library applied as a library in the Flint/Saginaw/Bay City TV market on Sunday April 6, 2007. The Season One DVD arrived 4 days later. I must commend the group on their swift response time, which would have been one day faster if the library's hours and UPS's delivery time had coincided.

The Save Friday Night Lights group plans on donations to other libraries as funds permit.

The DVDs are available at the East Tawas Library desk for checkout. In order to allow the most patrons at one time to view the DVDs, each disc will check out individually. When one disc is returned the next one may be checked out. (Season One is a set of 5 discs and 22 hours of TV viewing time total.)

The library also has available for checkout the book Friday Night Lights: A Town, a Team, and a Dream by H. G. Bissinger. This book, originally published in 1990 and updated 10 years later with an afterword, inspired the 2004 movie Friday Night Lights. The movie in turn inspired the television show.

The East Tawas Library would like to thank the patron that donated the book to the library and the group Save Friday Night Lights for the donation of the DVD sets.