microfiche

Today's task is for me to research and write a paper on the Wesleyan Quadrilateral, a term coined by someone after Wesley about his approach to theology. In short, the tools that we have available to help answer theological questions are (1) scripture, (2) tradition, (3) reason, and (4) experience.

This morning I came to the library to do some research, and I came to the conclusion that books are dumb, but periodicals are way cool. There's so much more to be found in magazines than in books. Bound magazines are nice, of course, but what's really mind-boggling is microfiche. On a transparent piece of plastic about the size of a notecard, someone has managed to cram about 60 pages of magazine articles. In the back of the library are stacks and stacks of huge drawers storing these things... there's so much information there! I bet no one really knows how much there is to read.

So I found two articles on the microfiche and printed them out for a dime a page. It's a worthwhile investment, I think... I might just keep these resources in a file somewhere in case I need to refer back to them in the future. This could be the start of my theological library, at least in terms of photocopied/printed magazine articles. But you have to start somewhere, I suppose. :)