Page:The Duties and Qualifications of a Librarian (1780).djvu/49

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A Librarian
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of party, or those exclusive predilections that border upon mania; but an erudition at once ample and considerate, which has solely in view the advancement of knowledge, and which is ever able to distinguish, with equal taste and accuracy, original works that are worthy to be proposed as models, from those equivocal productions justly condemned to forgetfulness for their mediocrity. He will therefore not admit indiscriminately every book into his collection, but will select such only as are of genuine merit and of well-approved utility; and his acquisitions, guided by the principles of an enlightened economy, will be rendered still more valuable by