Advise On Best Books To Select in a Library, Charles Ammi Cutter (1837 – 1903)

He said:
    'There is no royal road to the selection of a library. There are no "best books." "Each in its place is best." There are no books which  can truly be called "the only good books." There are very many desirable  books of very varying degrees of literary and other merit, which must      be provided to suit, I do not say the tastes, but the needs of the  public; and the library so made is not going to be at all a library of  standard books or an ideal library or, in the judgment of most people,  a well-selected library. But it may nevertheless be a very useful and a   very educational library.'[source: Library Journal, 1901]

Also quoted in Dictionary of Library and Information Science  Quotations 

    Edited by Mohamed Taher and L S S R Valluri Ramaiah. ISBN: 8185689423 (New Delhi , Aditya, 1994) (p. 100). 

On the same shelf:

·                   Library book selection then (1925), now (2013),... in principle it remains unchanged...