Constellation Similarity Assertions

Princeton University. Library. Department of Rare Books and Special Collections

From its modest origins as a single room in Nassau Hall, the Princeton University Library has grown to become one of the foremost university libraries in the world. With collections totaling over 12 million volumes, manuscripts, and nonprint items spread across fifteen buildings, the Princeton University Library system serves not only the Princeton University community but the world at large.

The genesis of the Princeton University Library is nearly contemporaneous with the founding of the University itself. As early as 1750 small gifts of books had been made to the College by concerned benefactors and in 1754, only two years before the fledgling institution's relocation from Newark to Princeton, royal governor of New Jersey Jonathan Belcher donated his entire collection of 474 volumes. Even at this early point the Trustees clearly considered the acquisition and maintenance of a suitable library to be of a high priority, going so far as to earmark space in the new home of the College (the soon to be built Nassau Hall) as a sizable library room.

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