Gleaning from Readings…
In another post (a comment from my Forgiveness post), Jeff asks how much I read. I read LOTS for many reasons, but primarily to glean illustrations, stories, quotes that will be helpful in preaching. But you might ask… what do you do with those stories, etc.
 Years ago, both Dean Miller, then pastor at Christ Church of the Brethren in Carol Stream, IL, and John Maxwell, Leadership guru… taught me a great system that I have used for nearly 20 years. When I read, I do so with pen in hand … I mark up all my books… underlining stories, quotes, etc and then in the margin I write a topic or theme. Then I also record the page number in the back of the book. When I get a stack of books that I have read, I go to a copier and make copies of the pages listed in the back. Then I file those stories in a folder that is labeled with the theme. I keep the file drawer alphabetical by theme. Then when it comes time to preach on forgiveness, I go to the file drawer and pull out the file folder that says “Forgiveness” and I have lots of possible quotes, stories, etc to choose from. I also mark the date on the story once I use it so that I know when it was last used.  This has been a real life-saver for me.
 Do you have a system you use? Share it with us.
01 Oct 2008 Martin Hutchison
Hi Martin,
I’m on vacation, but thought I would “drop-in” to see what’s been posted.
I REALLY appreciate your sharing how you read and retain the information you’ve read. It sounds like you have a great system in place!
I, too, highlight portions of my readings and sometimes write notes in the margin as to the theme or a short summary of the highlight. However, you go into a lot more detail in writing in the back of your books and photocopying the page and then filing them. WOW! I just try to rely on my memory of where information is at.
Question: If you have several themes written in the back of your book on one page, do you make multiple photocopies of each back page and file them in each appropriate place?
Again, thanks for sharing your reading system. In some ways, it seems low tech. Have you every considered inputing that information into a computer so you could do a word search on themes?
I’m curious to what other people’s systems are. PLEASE, join the conversation. We would love to hear what you have to say!!
Jeff Glass
If the story or illustration fits two themes, I make two copies and file in appropriate places.
It is a low tech way… but I’ve been using it since the begining of my ministry and to convert it would be VERY time consuming…. besides, you would have to scan the stories in order to do it electronically. This system is really not that hard to maintain or use.
I find that while I am somewhat hi-tech, I still like to read the old fashioned way and when I work on a sermon, I still use a legal pad to right my notes… sometimes it is hard to teach an old dog new tricks.
I’ve got a nifty software called Nota Bene. When I’m using it properly, which unfortunately is only some of the time, I simply type in a quote or a summary of a story/illustration on an electronic “notecard” and then code it thematically as necessary. The card includes bibliographical information, which it imports automatically from a companion program. I add the page number and any other additional information.
Then when I want to retrieve stories/illustrations/quotes, I simply do a records search and it brings up all of the “notecards” that reference that theme or have a keyword in its text. I can scroll through them quickly and select the ones I need. If I need more information it tells me exactly where to go in what book/publication.
Was great help when writing my dissertation, and my intent is to continue using it to manage illustrations in an electronic format.