I can relate to that cartoon above. And I resonate with Erasmus when he famously said ‘when I get money I buy books. If anything is leftover, I buy food.’ One trend that has alarmed me somewhat is that libraries are increasingly going away from print books, and moving to digital books, like on Kindle for example. Why is this alarming? Because for research purposes especially you cannot compare and take notes on multiple pages of the same book, and by notes I mean in the margins of the books. I have a whole system of stars, circles, underlining, underlining with stars for the very important, and comments in the book itself. And even more to the point my visual memory is such that I remember where the especially marked up pages are. The way I do serious research is by having a pile or two (not quite to the extent of the cartoon) beside my comfy study chair, and I grab them and type away with my two fingers. I don’t have a problem with using occasional good online articles on a reasonably reliable source like Wikipedia, but one has to have some good critical judgment in reading such articles. Better to stick to articles in refereed journals on the whole.
The question I get frequently is how have I written so many books, and one important answer is because I have been stimulated by reading so many hundreds of books, and I am not merely talking about the use of reference books, which of course I use as well while not reading them straight through. There is the further matter of being able to write at any level of discourse. I thank God regularly for my English major degree from UNC. I learned how to write well at levels ranging from technical academic writing, down to popular discourse, and whatever is in between. Unfortunately many scholars never learned to do this, and sequester themselves into conversations with their scholarly peers. As a Christian I don’t think this is entirely acceptable, with rare exception. I have a duty to share what I learn not only with scholars, but with pastors, teachers, lay people. I take that seriously, and to expose them all to potentially good new resources.
For those wanting to read about my journey to being a scholar, you can read the short volume entitled Is There a Doctor In the House?
At my house, we all read and read and read, even the cat—- just kidding about the kitty.
English (US) · 