So I got the Morrowind GOTY guide and am following along with it for fun (I have already tried to beat the game to no avail, too many distractions so I thought this would help) and I'm just curious, how the crud do I get the book out of the chest for her to teach me the summon skeleton/summon ancestral spirit? She's always looking at the chest and everyone else on that floor is too?

Preferably without cheats, thanks.

Use strong Chameleon potions and spells.
Use Telekinesis, so you can open the chest from afar.
Get your Sneak really high.

Or you could even use Command Humanoid, and make everyone follow you out of the room.
Morrowind makes you think outside the box sometimes.

In this case he needs to think inside the box, though.

So it's really nothing that can be achieved at level one?

I did it once without using any spell or potions. You must sneak behind her so that she somehow hides you from the other characters and close enough to the chest. Survey what the other mage does and open the chest when she looks elsewhere. Good luck!

Har freaking har...

One way you could likely get that chest open undetected at an early level is for you to go southwest of Ald Velothi. Search for a damsel in distress... 's all I'm going to say.