Unique law library has served community for 79 years; The Chronicle [St. Helens, Oregon], February 1, 2018

Rigmor Angel Soerensen, The Chronicle [St. Helens, Oregon]; Unique law library has served community for 79 years

"Davis and Ballentine visited different law libraries around the state. They talked with people, took photographs and interviewed librarians to get a feel for what law library facilities are like.

“I was particularly interested in what law libraries are going to look like in 10 or 15 years,” Davis said. With changes in technology and the availability for resource materials Davis wondered how the role of law libraries would change in today’s society.

Davis and Ballentine worked on their study for about six months, then wrote up a report and presented it to the commissioners, the district attorneys and the law library committee which hired them to implement their recommendations in the fall of 2015. With new lighting, a repaired floor with new carpet and a computer work area with digital access to online resources the law library was reopened for business in January of 2016 and Davis was hired as the law librarian."

Pittsburgh Center Honoring Playwright Finds Itself Short on Visitors and Donors; New York Times, 11/23/13

Trip Gabriel, New York Times; Pittsburgh Center Honoring Playwright Finds Itself Short on Visitors and Donors: "Named for the Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright who found a street-savvy poetry in the lives of poor Pittsburgh blacks, the culture center’s plight has been especially painful for those who had hoped it would enshrine the music, art and literature of the urban world he knew. Instead, it appears to be a victim of mismanagement by its senior staff and board of directors, who borrowed to build a grand palace of culture, but failed to find a wide enough audience and donor base in the hometown of Wilson, whose plays are mostly set in the Hill District just blocks away... Mark Clayton Southers, a former director of its theater program, said the Wilson center struggled to find an audience among the people Wilson portrayed: working-class blacks, many of whom feel unwelcome downtown with its skyscrapers and largely white-owned businesses, he added. “You can’t build it and they will come,” Mr. Southers said. “Not when you’re trying to work with a community that is not traditional theatergoers or cultural consumers.”... Neither the founders nor a new board of directors that took over in 2010 could come up with a business plan to fund ambitious programs in dance, theater, jazz and art while making the $53,600 monthly loan payments."