08 March 2009

A question for librarians

Is there a word for "library-lover" equivalent to "bibliophile?" The latter is close, but refers to the books rather than the library itself.

I've written TYWKIWDBI posts about attractive and impressive libraries and library buildings, and have often wanted to use a "...phile" word in the text, but have been unable to come up with one.

The prefix should come from Greek, but all I've been able to find on translation sites is βιβλιοθήκη or bibliothêkê, which generate rather infelicitous combinations. Could there be a suitable word in another language or with another etymology?

Perhaps someone at the interesting blog The Centered Librarian will know...

3 comments:

  1. I'm not a librarian, but I presently work for one. I'm told that bibliothequophile could be the term you're looking for.

    ReplyDelete
  2. We at TCL second Stephen's “bibliotecaphile” with a spelling variation.

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  3. It's very appealing visually, but seems incredibly impractical. Navigating this, and having clumsy humans stammer across the stairs seems dangerous.

    ReplyDelete

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