A Little Beyond Her Grasp

“If the collection was housed in one building, with open stacks and strict Library of Congress subject classification, the student would profit from being ‘constantly confronted by books a little beyond his grasp’ and from the example of graduate students and faculty working together. Whether the student found a specific book did not concern Dix so much as ‘instructing him to learn to think, to use the library, and to grow intellectually’ –objectives ‘identical with those of the teaching faculty.’ From such a perspective, the library and librarians were leading educators on campus, and the ‘closer the librarian approaches the ideal of the teacher-scholar the better.’ ….To facilitate the ‘magic contact between book and reader which is at the indispensible center of education’ is the essential function of a library building.”

William Dix, the first librarian at Princeton’s Firestone Library (history of Princeton)
The Princeton University Library in the Eighteenth Century William Dix ( OCLC: 5155918 )