Today, I was able to use my research skills to improve my home life.  While my students might sigh and roll their eyes if I were to cite today’s work as a benefit of knowing how to research effectively, I did benefit.

We are in the process of remodeling the house and have been working on the main bathroom.  Someone described the old bathroom as “The place where hope goes to die” because it was painted black with a theme shared between Dia De los Muertos artwork and scary rubber ducks.  While I did like the room, this person did have a point; especially because the room was too small to support the black walls and ceiling.

I had planned to keep the bathroom black, but was going to incorporate old medicine bottles, ointments, and so forth.  I already had some “Wizard Oil” (a true product) and planned to add to it.  I have been convinced to give up my black walls, but we are keeping the idea of medical products.

Anyway, today started the part of the remodeling that required research skills.

We decided that we wanted images of pharmacies as well as advertisements.  While some people might just grab images from the Internet, it is important to me that we not violate copyright.  I not only know strategies for effectively finding images but I also know how to find images we can legally use.

I am not going to detail my research strategies, but it did not take me much time to find many acceptable images.  But I also know that to get the best set of images, I still need to do additional research.  Without a broader basis on which to make decisions, I will at best be adequate.  We are not satisfied with adequate.

I have also done a minimal amount of reading about pharmacies and have been taking notes on the images I have found.  As I do additional research, the enjoyment we will have in the remodeling will be increased because we will know the history about what we are displaying.

Again, I am sure that being able to do research while remodeling a bathroom would not be considered a benefit of taking classes from me.  But who knows?  Maybe there is a slightly demented student who finds the concept of Asthma Cigarettes as fascinating as I do.

–Steven L. Berg, PhD