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"How To Do Research" Workshop Well Received Nevada Women’s History Project members and guests enjoyed two and a half hours of presentations from seven speakers at the “How to do Research” Workshop on Saturday, September 17th, held at the Nevada Historical Society in Reno. Three staff members of NHS led the program beginning with Shery Hayes-Zorn, Acting Director, talking about the history of the institution and some of its special collections. She brought several historic items to share. Michael Maher, Librarian, gave an overview of what kinds of resources the NHS research library contains. He passed out examples of file cards they use and gave specific examples of what is available in the many NHS collections. Michael walked the audience through the process of doing research, explaining that their facility is organized so that their holdings are accessed by NHS employees, not patrons. Researchers work closely with staff to determine what is available prior to having items accessed. He also had prepared a display of books on Nevada women housed in their library collection. Lee Brumbaugh, Curator of Photography, shared an historic collection of photographs from earliest examples to modern times. His talk was interesting as he explained the various processes of developing photos that changed rapidly as that art grew more sophisticated and universal. The different ways of obtaining photos for researchers to use in their projects were explained. The NHS facility contains 500,000 photos of Nevada topics. All are indexed by subject. Forms are available to order photos. Some orders can be processed via e-mail. An exhibit of photos of historic Nevada women had been arranged by Lee for participants to peruse. Author and newspaper columnist Patty Cafferata shared several rules of research beginning with - don’t believe everything you read! Your newest best friend will be your librarian. Know what dates you are interested in. Organize your materials chronologically. Do preliminary research. Pick your topic; know the dates involved. If writing about a place, go there. Take photos or order some. Look at maps. Produce clipping files arranged in date order. Take notes using index cards. Develop a form that works for you for research findings. Begin writing, than revise as necessary. Her talk gave the audience a clear idea of what doing research involves and how important organization is. Our fifth speaker, Carrie Townley Porter, talked about her 40-year research project on “the First Lady of Las Vegas”, Helen J. Stewart. Carrie’s book on Stewart, co-authored with prolific writer Sally Zanjani, has recently been published and is available for purchase. She shared her experiences with “digging up history” literally, as graves were exhumed and new information gathered which added to Carrie’s research findings. Patti Bernard gave an overview of Web sites and local research facilities. Among many other useful suggestions, Patti said that the UNR Knowledge Center, Federal Government section, is an excellent resource. She suggested using Google to locate sites that contain information valuable to researchers. Master of Ceremonies Kay Sanders briefly talked about the process of doing personal interviews and how to prepare for them. She emphasized how important it is to give the interviewee time to think about the topic prior to the session. The interviewer should do her/ his own preparations by developing questions, doing advance research on the subject, and making sure that the recording device to be used is in good working order and one knows how to operate it. Plan B involves taking notes during the interview rather than using a recorder. The information contained in the presentations will be a tremendous help to anyone interested in pursuing the goal of researching and writing about Nevada women. Resulting biographies will add to the volume of knowledge about women in our state, their lives, and contributions. NWHP gained at least two new researchers/ writers as a result of this workshop. We have had requests for doing another workshop on this topic. Carrie Townley Porter, cochair of the Jean Ford Research Center Committee, and I thank the Nevada Historical Society and Shery Hayes-Zorn, Acting Director, for allowing NWHP to use their facility and authorizing staff members to present their exceptional talks. Thanks also to the NWHP volunteers who gave presentations, assisted in preparing folders for the participants, helped advertise the event, and assisted in recruiting participants. Kay Sanders, Editor, NWHP Web site Biographies, Co-Chair
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