Bibliophilia is the love of books. Accordingly a bibliophile loves books, but especially "for qualities of format." A bookworm loves books for their content, or otherwise loves reading in general. Bibliophilia is generally considered to be an incorrect, but some would say merely recent, usage.

The practice of loving or collecting books is dubbed bibliophilism, and the adjective form of the term is bibliophilic. Also, a bibliophile may be a book collector. The classic bibliophile is one who loves to read, admire and collect books, often amassing a large and specialised collection.

Bibliophiles do not necessarily want to possess the books they love; an alternative would be to admire them in old libraries. However, the bibliophile is usually an avid book collector, sometimes pursuing scholarship in the collection, sometimes putting form above content with an emphasis on old, rare, or expensive books, first editions, books with special or unusual bindings, autographed copies, etc. Bibliophilia is not to be confused with bibliomania, an obsessive-compulsive disorder involving the collecting of books to the point where social relations or health are damaged, and in which the mere fact that an object is a book is sufficient for it to be collected or loved.

Some use the term "bibliomania" interchangeably with "bibliophily" and in fact, the Library of Congress does not use the term "bibliophily," but rather refers its readers to either book collecting or bibliomania. The New York Public Library follows the same practice.

Similar to 0 things you like: