The first miniature books to enter Patricia J. Pistner’s life were ones she made with paper and a staple gun for her childhood dollhouse many years ago. She placed them on tiny doll tables in tiny doll rooms and read them aloud to tiny dolls. “A house has to have books in it,” she said recently.

There would be more dollhouses — ones she and her husband built and furnished for his granddaughters, and the now famous Pistner House, a five-and-a-half-foot-high marvel of 18th-century French architecture and design that features perfectly-scaled miniature reproductions, made over half a decade, by 65 artists and artisans. That led to a new obsession. “I made a life-changing decision to put in a library,” Pistner said, “and instead of using faux books I decided I would have real books.”

Fast forward a number of years — and a number of courses on antiquarian books, miniature books and the history of bookbinding — to now, when Pistner (pronounced PEIST-ner) has become one of the country’s foremost collectors of miniature books. About 950 books from her collection are currently on display at the Grolier Club, the nation’s oldest society of bibliophiles, in Manhattan. (The exhibition, curated by Pistner and Jan Storm van Leeuwen, closes on May 19.)