on reading books
A few years ago, someone asked me in the first Theories of the Mind seminar, How much should I read for this course? Good question. I answered it, but have gone on thinking about it.
The problem is this. Supposing I said to all 40 students currently doing this course, You should read this book:
Anthony Stevens, Jung: a very short introduction.
It's beautifully written, very intelligent, written by a practicing analyst who is a leading thinker about Jung. It doesn't cheapen the subject, but is very short and clear, and it's a brilliant introduction to Jung.
So immediately up to 40 students start looking for it. The first place they look is in the Library catalogue. Not there (though there are some other books by Stevens on Jung, which I strongly recommend). OK, next step:
Five copies. 3 central, one in Kings Heath (which is where I live) and one in Sutton Coldfield. Wonderful. However, they only one that's not on loan is the Sutton Coldfield one. Hmm. That has to be a 20 mile round trip.
OK, Amazon. Various options, but it will end up costing about five pounds. A reasonable option, I guess.
However, there is another way. I came across this book because I found it in Questia. Questia is an online library. it has some amazing advantages. It has 75,000 humanities books in it, all available 24/7 to everyone who wants them. If you go into Questia you can find the Stevens book (and two other (recommended) books by him on Jung) and start reading it straight away; the whole process takes just a few seconds, the academic equivalent of instant gratification. Moreover, it contains books; real books. Not web pages. Books have depth and authority and convey research kudos in a way that web pages don't. And, amazingly, you can copy and paste from these books and Questia will obligingly create a properly formatted citation for you.
The downside is, it costs. A year's subscription to Questia costs 5 pounds a month. The price of one copy of Stevens' book... Cleverly, if you subscribe for a month only, it costs more. But you can get free trial entry for a day and find out what's on offer (in terms, for instance, of your dissertation/research project). I strongly recommend that you try it for a day and see.
The university offers an online library, incidentally: Ebrary. This is free, but quite hard to get into (via my.bham), quite hard to read books in, and doesn't have many books. Nothing with 'Jung' or 'Freud' in the title, for instance; though it does have some Lacan books, curiously. Try it and see.
Footnote for iphone owners. There is an app for this. It's called Questia, it's free, and it gets you instant access to your Questia library (to which you still have to subscribe). 75,000 books in the palm of your hand. This raises the startling possibility that you can do a morning's serious work without even getting out of bed...
I'd be very grateful if you could feed me back with how useful (or not) you find Questia.
