Agenda (5) and Scholarly Base

It strikes me that the scholarly agenda (overarching sense of the purpose of one's work) helps in the elaboration of the scholarly base: all the things necessary but not sufficient that support scholarship. The base is not just knowledge, but also access to materials, to other scholars; abilities, like writing prose or analyzing texts. The relation between the agenda and the base should go without saying, but a lot of things that go without saying need to be said over and over again.