"But it was a new, untried procedure," says the councilmember. "It was by nature experimental."

"I guess that's a reasonable way to think about it. I certainly agree I'd have gotten better data if I had set it up as a formal study from the start and made people promise to fill out the whole survey before letting them try the spell."

"It's not solely a question of the quality of data, it's a question of whether there was informed consent to a high enough standard."

"They knew it was a new procedure and that I didn't know everything about how it would work, and they consented to trying it at the time. My taking a survey weeks later doesn't change that retroactively."

"No one can verify that, since some of them don't have responses recorded in your data."

"I have the waivers they all signed. Also, just to clarify--what are you asking for, going forward?"

"We're not sure if you're competent to handle your own research arm."

"Can you recommend someone who is competent, either to run the research or to review my study designs? Maybe I should get an internship in a human scientist's lab, I could learn how to run a study and it would probably generalize to magic research pretty well."

"That might be prudent. You'll need to find someone interested in helping with your work in this capacity yourself."

She now has two completely unrelated problems being exacerbated by the shortage of critter academics. Stupid tiny critter population. On the other hand . . . "Are there any particular qualifications you'd want the other person to have, besides knowing about critters and knowing how to run a study?"

"Any other qualifications necessary to administer the treatment."

"Um, administering the treatment is literally just letting the patient touch the enchanted rock. Anybody who can do the consent forms beforehand can do that part. Is there any particular qualification you had in mind?"

"If there are any reasons not to touch the rock the person will need to handle it carefully themselves and store it carefully between uses," says a councilmember.

"They'll need to be qualified to assess before and after states," says another.

Okay, so she probably can't just do a lot of reading and then ask Bella to do it. Maybe Dr. James can do it or knows someone who can, or the library has critter medical journals.

"Okay," she says. "Anything else you're likely to need before I come back with a detailed proposal?"

"A detailed proposal seems like the next step."

"Alright then, if that's all I guess I'll head out. Have a nice day!"

Assuming nobody thinks of anything else, she heads to the Avalon library.

It is cozy and quiet. The holds shelf takes up an entire (small) wall.

She looks in periodicals first; is there anything that looks like a scientific or medical journal run by critters?

Nope. It's mostly magazines and the Journal of Cryptozoology.

The Journal of Cryptozoology sounds like an interesting read even if it doesn't help with her problem, what's in it?

This sort of thing.

She can see why an Avalon library would want to carry that sort of thing, but yeah, that really doesn't help. Time to do what people with problems have been doing since time immemorial and Ask The Librarian. She makes her way to the information desk.

The librarian is explaining to someone that they're having a problem with the bookmobile but they expect more holds in on Wednesday. When he's done with that: "Can I help you?"

"Hello. I'm doing a research project, and I was wondering if there's anything like a scientific community for critters. You know, research journals, controlled studies, that sort of thing."

"Specifically for critters? I think most people who want to go into science use human universities - there's even distance learning now for monsters."