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[Mostali]

I'm playing in a new world (year 11, started in year 5).  I've had a library and a single scholar running for three years now.  Visitors are allowed but none have come.  The scholar is an accomplished surgeon, and though he spends all of his time Pondering Bandages! he has only written two very bad scrolls on Fortresses - one generically about the fortress and the other about him coming to the fortress.  There are both human and dwarf caravans but neither brings reading material of any kind.  Now the rest of my dwarves are getting anxious, sometimes downright unruly, for reading material and abstract thought.

So, what's the best way to get a library going from nothing?  Are there any professions other than doctors and mechanics that I can train up?  I have a mechanic that's nearly legendary and I'm going to make him a scholar just as soon as he is.

I also don't entirely understand mentor/mentees.  Should I assign a peasant as a scholar to try and form a bond with the surgeon and maybe spark discussions?

[PatrikLundell]

I'd skip the profession part unless a particular theme was aimed for. I'd rather select scholars based on their preferences, and I'd also consider assigning suitable dorfs to the library for limited time to get them to discuss things and thus relieve some intellectual pressure (and possibly even write something), then send them back to work after a few months of thinking.
As far as I've seen, elves don't bring anything readable, but human caravans often do (but in a starting world there aren't too many books available for copy and sale).

[SkeleBret]

I've never personally witnessed a master/apprentice relationship form so I can't answer anything there, but you definitely need more scholars to make anything else happen. The only criteria they need is that they at least 'value knowledge'. They will discuss things on their own and then start writing books. You can appoint a few scribes as well to copy those books, as long as you have plenty of writing material.

Basically just appoint lots of scholars and scribes that value knowledge and you should be good, you'll get visitors eventually who'll bring their own books and topics of discussion.

[Fleeting Frames]

Going by forums, master/apprentice relationship needs at least 3 teacher, iirc, though worldgen relationships bypass this.

I think you'll find those who need abstract thinking - have it in the red - will be very happy to work in the library. However, if your work was processing before and stopped, check your buildings with t - it's likely something was tasked and forgotten, and you need to forbid things and unforbid after a bit to get things moving again.

From wiki, organizer, record keeper and pump operator are also things you can train up. However, the only skill that writes meaningful books is philosopher, who have a chance to preach their values. Everything else is just needs satisfying and handful of student and reader experience.

[Nilbert]

Also seems that those "who find the quest for knowledge to be of the very highest value" are good for the library (written in light blue).

I'm playing in a new world (year 11, started in year 5). 

I've run a bunch of library forts (I love libraries), and this is the issue you have with having no outside scholars or books.  It takes a lot of dwarf years for scholars to come about and actually write something.  I've found only one or two books in my worlds with 25 years or less (if I am lucky).  I have to run world gen to about 125 years to get scholars and some books.

That said, I also have run forts without outside scholars or books.  Thought of them as 'starting history and literature' forts (aka, nerd nation).  What I do is assign reading, writing, wordsmithing, and teaching to four of my starting dwarves, and once everything is running, put them in the library.  Then, like PatrikLundell, I look at preferences and put in all dwarves who have the hankerin' to do some book learnin'.  I checked for a long time if dwarves can learning reading and writing with having no initial skill in it, and yes, they can (it is slow though).  I like to go for about seven to ten scholars with no labor sets except some hauling and cleaning tasks.  It takes years for them to finally start writing something (btw, be sure to have lots of writing material ready).  Once they start though, they write a lot.  At that time I assign one as a scribe to start making copies.

I've never had a master/apprentice relationship form, but I have had lots and lots of intellectual breakthroughs, had excellent books (instead of just angry, poorly written, and meandering text), great titles, and dwarves moving from scholars to geographers, astronomers, etc. 

[Sanctume]

I look for "values knowledge" and not those "don't care much in pursuit of knowledge"

For starting skills, +5 in specific skills such as Diagnostician or any of the doctor labors, or Mechanic.  Good military seems to help too.  There are others, check the wiki. 

Organizer helps to setup meetings and debates. 
Teacher does not seem to help increase writing books. 
Student does seem to help.
Writing skills seems to only apply to scribes in producing copy books.

And iirc, a dwarf will write 1 book in a season, and spend pondering the next season.  I've not read reports where a book writer every season. 

One tip I read was to put a Profiled lever to to your scholar, to be pulled on Repeat inside the library as this tends to make your scholar go to the library (after the purple ponder) and pull the lever, and be near the library to encourage writing sooner.

[Fleeting Frames]

I picked a dedicated librarian/mechanic in Moonhome; their Wordsmith skill rusted away, though was eventually renewed with dozen points to dabbling - from Krogoth the to-be omnilegendary thread, you apparently use that with poetry when performing or arranging forms, and poets can write books. This one didn't get the chance to use it, but seems all five dwarves I'm atm looking at who have written books have 12-24 exp in it, a number that doesn't correlate with the 50-200 exp in writer.

I'm not sure what the reader skill does in fort mode - beyond being gained alongside student when reading books (but unlike in adventure mode, don't need it to read one). I know that worldgen scholars come with skill levels in reader, writer and student, though.

Perhaps related was that I got great book on animal migration out of military person (so high master student) with no significant values (perseverance/decorum/dignity) I assigned to library as their need was in the red, who pondered up from nothing to still pretty low adequate tracker/logican/record keeper (and also had 1 better organizer, but that's probably demonstrations), while the designated library-dwarf never made anything good. Probably nothing, as even a dabbling dwarf can make an exceptional coffer, but...

@Sanctume:

I'm absolutely certain - as in, have game open right now -  that writer skill is at the very least gained by scholars who write books sometimes and never gained for scribes, even after copying dozens of books.

From this I dare hazard a guess that it relates to the quality of the content in produced book, but I have no real way to check right now.
One way to test for skills would perhaps be finding a librarian writing a book in mid-job, saving the game and save-scumming to check the distribution of book qualities; then using make-legendary (or higher with gui/gm-unit) to increase desired skills to test for and see if the writing quality changes.

[Sanctume]

found this post, re-reading again

[Mostali]

I appreciate all the advice.  The fort is already running, so I can't (or don't want to) go back to embark to dedicate writing skills.  I generally like libraries but for now I just want to give the populous stuff to read to satisfy the need.  What I've done so far is assign a legendary mason as another scholar. (I didn't want to assign someone whose skills would rust).  I've disabled all labors for both.  I assigned a migrant as a scribe, who immediately copied the two existent scrolls.  All three have "values knowledge" and while I haven't thoroughly searched all of the dwarves I haven't seen anything better so far.  It's only been two months but the Surgeon still Ponders Bandages! and the Mason was in the library once when I checked but all the other times was out doing needs.

I'm going to give it another year and see how it goes.  Once one of the mechanics reaches legendary I'll assign it as well and see if between the three of them they can get a discussion going.  I realize it's going to take years for quality, but again just for now it would be nice to get a couple of new scrolls a year.  Over time I'll assign more if needed but I've already made massive libraries with hundreds of original scrolls in other forts, for this one I really just wanted functional.  But in those forts I had visitors, skilled migrants and trade books - I've never had to start from zero.  Then again, that's all part of the fun.

Right now I have bigger problems anyway.  There's a flying poison-spitting FB in the second cavern that hasn't fallen for my door baited traps and isn't taking damage from its growing kill list.  I don't want to send any dwarves in there for operations until it's gone, but it doesn't look like it's ever going away.

[Fleeting Frames]

Heh, yeah, Mostall - FBs tend to wander and will prefer fights over vandalism.
As far as your library situation goes, Masonry isn't scholarly skill. In your situation I'd probably do the same with mechanics (Well. Organizer should be fastest to train @100 exp per fast job, tbh, just queue bunch of things that won't cause cancellations, like collect sand, with a macro.)

found this post, re-reading again

It's a good thread, though the OP doesn't really update the OP; as shown with conflicting information on the second page already.

It's a long thread, so to cut long story short levraninja's summary or OP tips on page 8 would be better if you want quick tips from it.

[Mostali]

One year later, no new scrolls.  They Discuss! occasionally, and Ponder! whenever they're in the library alone.

I scoured my dwarves' preferences and found one to have "finds the quest for knowledge to be of the very highest value".  It's one of my original seven and my only legendary carpenter, so I'm going to assign her as scholar but not disable her labors since I still need beds.  All the rest have "values knowledge" except one that considers it a waste of effort.

The FB is still roaming around the second cavern killing everything.  Two others showed up which it promptly dispatched.  Its kill list is over 200 so I'm guessing the second cavern population will be extinct before I ever really get in there.

Update!:  Finally, after 16 months, the legendary mason came through with a scroll entitled "The Mountainhome: Further Musings"