There are not too many things that excite diehard music fans more than finding a new record store in which they can rummage through crates of used vinyls and racks upon racks of used albums and EPs.

A good record store is a safe place for these diehards. It is where a good chunk of their paychecks go and where they spend way more than the five minutes they originally swore to their friends they would spend inside. However, with the evolution of online purchasing and downloading of music, record stores seem to have lost some of their luster.

Even though devout music fans are still a familiar crowd to record store owners, it is the casual consumer that has increasingly disappeared from the scene, resulting in a decline of sales and even the closing of many independent record stores.

Two years ago, six individuals took it upon themselves to pay tribute to record stores. Eric Levin, Michael Kurtz, Carrie Colliton, Amy Dorfman, Don Van Cleave and Brian Poehner created Record Store Day to celebrate these businesses that sucked many adolescents into the art of music in the first place. According to recordstoreday.com, the group founded Record Store Day on April 18, 2007, as a celebration of the unique culture that surrounds over 700 independently-owned record stores in the U.S. and hundreds of similar stores internationally. On this day, hundreds of record stores hold special events, such as live shows, discounted prices and outdoor barbecues. What makes Record Store Day most unique, however, are the special releases that come from the artists.

Dozens of splits and special EPs are released on this day, primarily in music’s original form, the often forgotten vinyl. This year, several quality splits were released — the list included Andrew Bird/Loney Dear, Cursive/Ladyfinger, Flaming Lips/Black Keys and Sonic Youth/Beck just to name a few. If you thought this list was impressive, just take a look at what else the day had to offer—“Earth to the Remix EP Volume Two” by the Dandy Warhols, “Carpetbaggers” from the indie princess, Jenny Lewis, “The Headmaster Ritual” by the Smiths and the “1969” by the Stooges.

You may be asking yourself, “Why didn’t I see any of these events at local music stores, like FYE?” The answer to this is a simple one — in order to be eligible for Record Store Day, you must be a physical retailer whose store is at least 50 percent music retail, whose company is not publicly traded and whose ownership is at least 70 percent located in the state operation. As the Web site states: “in other words, we’re dealing with real, live, physical, indie record stores—not online retailers or corporate behemoths.”

It’s good to finally see that people out there have taken steps to celebrate fully the art of a record store. Although the innovation and improvements of mp3s and online music buying have had many positive effects for the industry and have opened up new music to different audiences, these innovations also seem to harm the art of music. Something is lacking when you can’t physically open up the jewel case or the album cover and read its liner notes. Too often individual songs rather than entire albums are downloaded, which takes away from what the artist is trying to accomplish. Hopefully, with each coming Record Store Day, this trend will start to diminish and people will go back to fully appreciating every aspect of an album.

Record Store Day is not a scam so that artists can produce a profit from special releases. Rather, it is a day of celebration for record store owners and employees, the artists themselves and, most importantly, those diehard music fans who spend all their time looking for deleted Smith singles and original, not re-released, Frank Zappa albums. So for every person involved in the art of making music — the artists, the producers, the store owners, the listeners — happy belated Record Store Day.