ALTAMONT — Books shape us.

Pete Seeger, at age 88, remembered a book a librarian suggested he read at age 7 — “Rolf in the Woods.” He recalled the story it told of a teenager who runs away from his abusive stepfather and is adopted by a middle-aged Indian whose tribe was massacred and whose wife was sold into slavery.

Ernest Thomas Seton writes in the preface to his 1911 book that one purpose of the story “was to picture the real Indian with his message for good or for evil.” He went on, “Those who know nothing of the race will scoff and say they never heard of such a thing as a singing and religious red man.”

When Seeger died in 2014, a New York Times editor noted his vivid memory of the book eight decades later was “fitting of someone who went on to engage issues of conscience.”

Marijo Dougherty, the curator of Altamont’s archives and museum, used eBay to purchase “Rolf in the Woods” for the Altamont Free Library.

But first the book will be part of an exhibit celebrating the library’s centennial, opening this Sunday at Village Hall.

In putting together the exhibit, Dougherty was challenged because the Altamont library has few artifacts. “I said ‘sure,’” she recalled on being asked to organize the display, “before I realized there’s nothing there. Things were lost, the library moved so many times.”

Dougherty pieced together bits of the library’s history by scouring back issues of The Altamont Enterprise. She learned that the Knowersville Library Association — both the village and The Enterprise were once named Knowersville — was founded in 1872 and auctioned the 1888 Webster Unabridged Dictionary, selling  raffle tickets for 25 cents each. The hefty volume was displayed in the village’s drugstore, at the corner of Main Street and Maple Avenue where The Spinning Room is today.

John T. Stafford was the lucky winner of the dictionary.  “They raised money to by 200 new books for the library,” said Dougherty.

Words that appeared for the first time in the 1888 dictionary included “smocking,” “unemployment,” and “input,” Dougherty said.

“It’s as big as a Bible,” said Dougherty describing the 1888 dictionary, a copy of which she bought on eBay along with seven other books to be displayed  in Village Hall before being donated to the library.

The exhibit also includes an 1884 Catalog of Books donated a half-century ago to the library by the late Arthur Gregg, longtime Guilderland town historian. The catalog lists some 400 books purchased for the library, including Harriet B. Stowe’s “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” William Shakespeare’s complete works in six volumes, Charles Dickens’s “Great Expectations,” J. Fenimore Cooper’s, “Last of the Mohicans,” and Charlotte Bronte’s “Jane Eyre.”

None of these books remain at the library.

Looking for more physical objects for the exhibit, Dougherty said, “I went to the quilters.”  The Train Station Quilters sewed a 14-page book about the Altamont Free Library. The library refurbished the village’s historic train station for its home. The front cover of the book is a train engine; the back cover is a caboose, and in between are 14 railroad cars. Buttons at the base of the cars are wheels on a railroad track.

Ron Ginsburg has photographed each page of the book for the exhibit. The book itself will be on display, with a page turned each day. After the exhibit closes on Dec. 16, the train book will be on permanent display at the library.

The exhibit also includes a list of the 100 best-selling children’s books from the last century compiled by the New York Public Library. Some of the titles — like Wanda Gag’s 1928 book, “Millions of Cats” — may be unfamiliar to modern readers. But others — like Dr. Seuss’s 1957 “The Cat in the Hat” — are still beloved.

The display also features a 1916 Enterprise account of the “earnest ladies” of the “progressive Colony Club” who on May 8 of that year launched a project  “for the benefit and improvement of Altamont — a free library.”

“The exhibit is loaded with text,” said Dougherty. “Fortunately, the audience that will be there likes to read.”

The name of the exhibit is “For the People: 100 Years of Community Enrichment from the Altamont Free Library.”

“We love them from birth to death,” Dougherty said. “A library is a place where people who feel lost can sit and study and read and find a place to be.”

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An opening reception of “For the People” will be held from 2 to 4 p.m. on Sunday, Sept. 25, at Village Hall at 115 Main St. in Altamont. The exhibition will run through Dec. 16. The Hallway Gallery is open from 9 a.m. to noon and from 1 to 4 p.m., Monday through Friday.

The exhibit is sponsored by Altamont Community Tradition, Roger Keenholts Fund, Thomas M. Sands, and Friends of the Altamont Library.