When Teresa Wilt retired last year as deputy director of research for the Nevada Legislature, she left behind a sterling legacy: a first-rate legislative library recognized for its depth, organization and accessibility.
Wilt
The library, housed in an office building adjacent to the Capitol in Carson City, comprises nearly 50,000 documents, books, journals, state agency reports, photographs, seating charts and other materials dating back to the Territorial Laws of 1861, three years before Nevada became a state. Its premier collection consists of individual dossiers, compiled by library staff, that provide a detailed chronological record of some 4,300 bills and resolutions introduced over the last several decades—complete with the minutes of committee meetings and hearings, exhibits, fiscal notes, amendments and floor actions.
Notably, the library is open not just to legislators and their aides, but also to researchers, educators, journalists and the public. And all of its holdings, save for the most fragile historical documents, are available online.
‘We Can Do This’
By all accounts, the credit goes to Wilt, who joined the Nevada Legislative Counsel Bureau’s research division in 2000 as an entry-level librarian and went on to lead the library through two enormous challenges: the lengthy process of digitizing its collections and, more recently, the COVID-19 pandemic.
Through those difficult years, Wilt says she and her staff—who account for just 10% of the research division’s 40-person roster—managed to keep their sights fixed on two goals: providing excellent customer service and contributing to the vitality of the legislative process.
Profiles in Service: Legislative Staff
In celebration of its 50th anniversary, NCSL is running a special series of profiles highlighting the invaluable contributions of legislative staffers across the nation. Each of NCSL’s nine professional staff associations chose staffers who have demonstrated exceptional dedication, creativity and impact in their legislative roles. We’re publishing the profiles throughout NCSL’s 50th anniversary year. To read more profiles, visit Profiles in Service: Legislative Staff.
“A big part of what makes the job so rewarding is knowing that what you’re doing is going to help people make better decisions,” Wilt says. Then, too, there’s “the little thrill of seeing some information we’ve unearthed get passed up the chain and show up in a bill.”
Sen. Ira Hansen (R), a veteran legislator who has a keen interest in research and “digging through years and years of historical data,” is a big fan of the library and its staff.
“When I’m working on an issue, I want to have the best available information,” Hansen says. “I don’t think I’ve ever had a request for anything that Teresa and her people couldn’t chase down—sometimes in as little as an hour. Either they have the information there or they know how to find it.”
Hansen describes Wilt as patient, knowledgeable and strongly committed to making sure her staff had access to a variety of networks, databases and technology tools, along with the training and experience to use them productively.
Wilt’s successor as chief librarian, Stephanie Heyroth Wilcox, recalls the wide array of tasks involved in digitizing the library’s holdings, which was in the early stages of implementation when she joined the staff in 2016.
“We had shelves and shelves of reports and other documents that had never been organized, so we had to sort through and classify all of those,” Wilcox says. “Thousands of items had to be scanned, databases had to be built and search tools had to be developed—and Teresa took on all of that and led the way. Her attention to detail was immaculate, the speed with which she accomplished things was amazing, and she built our confidence by always reminding us, ‘We can do this!’”
An Interdisciplinary Approach
Wilt didn’t set out to be a librarian, although she remembers that as a child growing up in Portland, Ore., the neighborhood library was her favorite hangout.
She graduated from Willamette University, in nearby Salem, with a degree in environmental science, attracted to the interdisciplinary program because it “gave me the chance to study chemistry, biology and other subjects I was interested in,” she says. “But I never really intended to work in any of those fields.”
After college, Wilt stayed on in Salem, managing an Italian restaurant while her husband attended law school. Looking back, she says it was the best training she could have had for her eventual work as a librarian. “You learn how to manage people, manage resources and focus on customer service.”
In the early 1990s, the couple moved to Reno, Nev., where her mother-in-law asked Wilt to join her at an elementary school library where she worked as a volunteer. “That experience opened my eyes. I was hooked,” Wilt says. She went on to work full time in several branches of the county library system and eventually earned a master’s degree in library studies at the University of Arizona. In 1999, she applied for work as an assistant librarian in the Nevada Legislative Counsel Bureau’s research division but was initially turned down. “I wasn’t their first choice,” she says. “But I got the job the following year when that person didn’t work out.”
Wilt remembers “coming in cold. It’s the kind of job where it’s so specialized, most of it you have to learn as you go.”
NCSL and Professional Development
Especially significant in her professional development, she says, was membership in Legislative Research Librarians, or LRL, one of nine professional associations sponsored by the National Conference of State Legislatures. “It’s such a small niche of libraries that LRL is our only way to easily connect with one another. That is hugely valuable.”
The group, established in 1978, publishes a quarterly newsletter and meets annually in special sessions at the NCSL Legislative Summit. It also maintains a listserv that provides quick turnaround on requests for information and guidance in areas ranging from software purchases and marketing to training for legislators and their staff.
Over the years, Wilt was active in LRL as a regional director, panelist and newsletter contributor, and she served four years as an officer. It was during her term as chair, in early 2020, that the pandemic struck, “and all of us were struggling with being closed for months and months,” she says.
“That’s when we realized that digitization had really paid off. The first thing we did was to get laptops for everyone, and we barely missed a beat. Who would have thought a librarian could work from home?”
In 2022, LRL recognized Wilt with its annual Staff Achievement Award for her contributions to the Nevada Legislature and the broader network of legislative librarians across the country.
“Throughout her career, Teresa consistently exemplified innovation, collaboration and an unwavering commitment to legislative research,” the citation reads. “Teresa’s generosity with her time, mentorship and expertise has profoundly impacted the legislative staff community. She has always placed service and civility at the heart of her work.
Today, a year into retirement, Wilt keeps busy reading, baking, riding her Ducati motorcycle and traveling with her husband, Allen, a retired attorney who is a fixture on the Porsche 911 amateur auto racing circuit. “He drives, and I’m his pit crew,” she says.
It was the opportunity to travel to races in the U.S. and, occasionally, in Europe that led to her decision to retire early, she said. “I absolutely loved my job, and under different circumstances, I could easily have worked another 10 years. But right now, I’m having the time of my life.”
Suzanne Weiss is a Denver-based freelance writer.