Poem in Your Pocket Day

April is National Poetry Month, and tomorrow, Thursday April 26th, is Poem in Your Pocket Day. What is Poem in Your Pocket Day? Here is the description from Poets.org:

The idea is simple: select a poem you love during National Poetry Month then carry it with you to share with co-workers, family, and friends. You can also share your poem selection on Twitter by using the hashtag #pocketpoem.

Need help finding a poem? There are many good resources available online, including the Poetry and Literature page of the Library of Congress,  the Scottish Poetry Library, the Poem-a-Day email from Poets.org, and Poetry Archive. Check out Arkansas poets Maya Angelou, Miller Williams, and C.D. Wright. And of course, your local library will have plenty of books of poetry to choose from - we even have some here at the Arkansas State Library.

So go find a poem and share it tomorrow.

Obituary Searches

Obituary searching is one of the many services that the reference staff of the Arkansas State Library perform for the public. We will search the Arkansas Gazette and the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette for patrons who provide us with a name and date of death. The search covers approximately one week following the provided date. Unfortunately, we cannot do a search without the date of death. 

The Arkansas Gazette archives go back to 1819 on microfilm, and the Democrat-Gazette records are available through an online subscription from 1984 to the present, as well as on microfilm.

Requests can be made in person, over the phone, and through the Ask A Librarian form on our website.

Ask us anything

Time for your semi-regular reminder about the reference services available at the Arkansas State Library.  While our primary mission is to serve state agencies and state employees, we are ready and willing to answer questions from the general public, public librarians, school teachers, college students, high school students, and everyone in between. If we can't find the answer in our databases and collections, we will do our best to find someone who does have the answer.  You can contact us by phone during office hours at (501) 682-2053, or any time by using our handy Ask a Librarian form, or by writing us at:

Arkansas State Library, Attn. Reference
900 West Capitol, Suite 100
Little Rock, AR 72201

Please include a reliable way to reach you; if you have email but only check it once a month, make sure we also have a phone number and/or mailing address.

If you prefer, you can also come to the library and speak to us in person.  Our hours are Monday through Friday, 8 AM to 4:30 PM. 

We generally answer questions within 24 hours, except during weekends and holidays.

Arkansas State Capitol's 101st Birthday

Next Tuesday, April 10th, at 6 PM, the Architecture and Design Network will be hosting a program in honor of the 101st birthday of the Arkansas State Capitol building. Capitol historian David Ware will give a talk about the origins of the capitol and several architects who have worked on restoration and remodeling projects at the capitol will add their comments about the challenges they encountered.

The event is free and open to the public. It will be held in the Supreme Court Chamber, on the second floor of the Arkansas State Capitol. For more information about the location and time, click here.

April Fools' Day facts

Sunday is April 1st, a day many people use as a chance to play pranks on friends, and a day many of those friends learn to hate. Here are some websites that provide some history and facts about the day.

• First is Snopes.com, a great place to go to check on hoaxes and urban legends. Here is their investigation into the origins of April Fools' Day.
• Here is an animated video about the history of April Fools' Day and some famous pranks.
• Finally, here are some safe but fun pranks to pull on your friends and family on April Fools' Day.

Weather resources online

This is a topic we have discussed before on the blog, but after the epic amounts of rain followed by flood warnings that we have had this week, it seems timely to revisit it. There are several good places to go online for up-to-date information regarding possible severe weather and weather warnings for your area.

The primary one is the National Weather Service Forecast Office for Little Rock. You can also choose another area to view by entering a city and state or zip code. The website has maps that show any warnings for the general area, specific warnings for your town or county, radar images, and forecasts for up to five days.

The Weather Channel website (http://www.weather.com/) is a slightly slicker, more user-friendly website that also shows warnings, radar images and forecasts for the country and local areas. These may be less detailed than the National Weather Service, but easier to glance through quickly.

Many of the local news stations and meteorologists have Facebook and Twitter accounts these days, and you can often sign up to follow them for breaking weather news. Just search for the channel's main webpage using a search engine, and once on the webpage, there will be links to social media sites as well.

Tech Petting Zoo at ASL

Did you know that we have a Tech Petting Zoo here at the Arkansas State Library? If you are a public librarian, you have probably started to get many questions from patrons about the many e-readers that are now on the market, and you may have some of your own. Questions like: How many books fit on an e-reader? Can it also play audio files? How long does the battery last? and so forth. If so, that is where the Petting Zoo comes in. It is a collection of e-readers put together by Donovan Mays, the Coordinator for Technical Support for the Extension Services office here at the library. He holds occasional workshops here at the library, and is also available for site visits at your library to show off the various readers and answer questions. For more information about the Zoo, you can email him at donovan (at) library (dot) arkansas (dot) gov, or call him at 501-682-5291. This service is only available to public libraries within the state.