Throughout these past few weeks I have inquired more knowledge about the Trout Gallery that I had ever intended to do. Most of my research has been with the help of Professor Earenfight, the current director of the Trout Gallery. He has helped me enormously by giving me material that is relevant to my research.
When I initially started my research on the Trout Gallery I had countless questions that I wanted to explore and find the answers to. A lot of my questions were basic questions that could be answered by reading information on the Gallery itself through the website. I never thought to explore the questions as to why specific things happened and why the Trout Gallery for example, never established a set of guidelines when selecting donations until now. As I met with Professor Earenfight, he was able to answer a lot of the basic questions for me, so now I need to focus more on the questions as to why these things occurred.
Finding time to do my research has been one of the challenges I gave come across. Although there are not a ton of documents I need to spend hours reading through, I do have four other classes and homework that has been piling up since it is the end of the semester. I try to find as much time as possible researching and writing my research paper but at times it is difficult.
Another challenge that I have come across is the insufficient amount of documents. Because the Trout Gallery is currently in the process of establishing a mission statement and general guidelines, I do not have a lot of historical documents. With that being said, I have to rely a lot on information Professor Earenfight is presenting me through meetings and interviews which may or may not be biased because I do not have another point of view. I was thinking that interviewing the previous directors of the Trout Gallery may be helpful in finding answers to my ‘why’ questions.
Mia, I understand your frustration in not having enough material to work with. I have had the same situation, as I am researching the Health Center, as well as the fact this is also my fifth class. I wonder if maybe in early minutes in the archives when the trout gallery was being proposed, or owned by Dickinson if there was any discussion on its early guidelines and main usage? Just a thought. I am jealous of the fact that you have someone to help who really is useful for information, I do not have that. Anyway I think this topic is really interesting and these are my main thoughts. Good luck finishing!
Mia,
Your topic is very interesting and it’s good that you have specific questions to narrow your focus, such as why the Trout Gallery only recently established guidelines. I sympathize with your problem finding resources, I had to narrow my topic because of a lack of access to certain resources. Are there any other professors related to the Gallery, or directors you could talk to aside from Professor Earenfight? I would suggest checking the local archives outside of the Dickinson library for resources. One possibility would be the Cumberland County Historical Society Archives, which is located on West High St. and allows free access to their archives. Good luck on the rest of your paper!