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The librarian's mission should be, not like up to now, a mere handling of the book as an object, but rather a know how (mise au point) of the book as a vital function.
Jose Ortega Y Gasset
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Interpretation

What this quote means

The librarian's role is to treat books as living resources that serve a crucial purpose rather than just physical objects.

Jose Ortega Y Gasset emphasizes that librarians should go beyond merely managing books as physical items. Instead, they should understand and promote the essential value and function of books in fostering knowledge, information, and growth within society, viewing them as vital resources that contribute to the life and development of individuals and communities.

Themes

LibrarianBooksKnowledgeFunctionEducation

In practice

Example use cases

In a speech about library contributions to education.

More from Jose Ortega Y Gasset

Man adapts himself to everything, to the best and the worst.
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"Natural" man is always there, under the changeable historical man. We call him and he comes-a little sleepy, benumbed, without his lost form of instinctive hunter, but, after all, still alive. Natural man is first prehistoric man-the hunter.
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We have not reached ethical perfection in hunting. One never achieves perfection in anything, and perhaps it exists precisely so that one can never achieve it. Its purpose is to orient our conduct and to allow us to measure the progress accomplished. In this sense, the advancement achieved in the ethics of hunting is undeniable.
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I am myself and what is around me, and if I do not save it, it shall not save me.
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We fall in love when our imagination projects nonexistent perfection upon another person. One day, the fantasy evaporates and with it, love dies.
Jose Ortega Y GassetRead
Life is a terrible conflict, a grandiose and atrocious confluence. Hunting submerges man deliberately in that formidable mystery and therefore contains something of religious rite and emotion in which homage is paid to what is divine, transcendent, and in the laws of Nature.
Jose Ortega Y GassetRead

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