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Donora Library bucking trend by expanding
Staff writer
sbeveridge@observer-reporter.com
DONORA – Donora Public Library is finding a way to expand despite cuts in state funding that are shuttering libraries and causing cuts in services at others.
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“If libraries don’t change, we might as well shut the doors today,” library Director Beth Vaccaro said.
Donora is fortunate to have endowments to offset a $12,000 reduction in state subsides this fiscal year, library board member Larry Mauro said.
The library also ended the last fiscal year with a surplus, allowing it to match a $5,000 donation to purchase the new microfilm reader.
It was badly needed because the old one broke down last year and there has always been a demand from the public to view microfilm of the old Donora newspapers, Vaccaro said.
The microfilm is valuable because the newspapers hold story of the infamous 1948 Donora smog, which was caused by a temperature inversion that trapped poisonous zinc mill gasses in the valley, she said. The smog killed at least 22 people and became the impetus for the nation’s first clean air laws.
The newspapers - the Donora American and Herald-American - also are important to history because Donora was home to the first major steel mill to shut down in the nation. Nearly every issue from 1901 to 1970 has been preserved on film. The collection also is vital to the many people who come to the library for genealogy research, Vaccaro said.
The ST Imaging reader allows viewers to browse the newspapers in high resolution on a computer screen and make good-quality copies of the pages. It has the capability of saving pages to digital files that can be burned onto a disk and sold to patrons, said Paul Dunn of Pittsburgh, who installed the equipment.
Canonsburg Library is the only other library in Washington County with one of the readers, Vaccaro said.
Most of the older readers are capable of just making poor copies of newspaper articles, said Dunn, of P.D. Imaging Solutions. And, he said, some library staffs are scared off of the technology Donora is embracing.
“We’re picking up and getting bigger and better,” Vaccaro said.
