path is plain, and, in exact
proportion to his acquaintance with them, will his knowledge and
usefulness extend. Bibliography may be defined as the science which
treats of books, of their authors, subjects, history, classification,
cataloguing, typography, materials (including paper, printing and
binding) dates, editions, etc. This compound word, derived from two Greek
roots, _Biblion_, book, and _graphein_, to write, has many analogous
words, some of which, ignorantly used to express a bibliographer, may be
set down for distinction: as, for example--Bibliopole--a seller of books,
often erroneously applied to a librarian, who buys but never sells:
Bibliophile, a lover of books, a title which he should always exemplify:
Bibliopegist, a book-binder: Bibliolater, a worshipper of books:
Bibliophobe, a hater of books: Bibliotaph, a burier of books--one who
hides or conceals them: Bibliomaniac, or bibliomane, one who has a mania
or passion for collecting books. (Bibliomania, some one has said, is a
disease: Bibliophily is a science: The first is a parody of the second.)
Bibliophage, or bibliophagist, a book-eater, or devourer of books.
Bibliognost, one versed in the science of books. Biblioklept, a book
thief. (This, you perceive, is from the same Greek root as kleptomaniac.)
Bibliogist, one learned about books, (the same nearly as bibliographer);
and finally, Bibliothecary, a librarian.

This brings me to say, in supplementing this elementary list (needless
for some readers) that _Bibliotheca_ is Latin for a library;
_Bibliotheque_ is French for the same; _Bibliothecaire_ is French for
Librarian, while the French word _Libraire_ means book seller or
publisher, though often mistaken by otherwise intelligent persons, for
librarian, or library.

The word "bibliotechny" is not found in any English dictionary known to
me, although long in use in its equivalent forms in France and Germany.
It means all that belongs to the knowledge of the book, to its handling,
cataloguing, and its arrangement upon the shelves of a library. It is
also applied to the science of the formation of libraries, and their
complete organization. It is employed in the widest and most extended
sense of what may be termed material or physical bibliography.
Bibliotechny applies, that is to say, to the technics of the librarian's
work--to the outside of the books rather than the inside--to the
mechanics, not the metaphysics of the profession. The French word