Bibliophilism is a rather broad term that encompasses the love for books.  This concept, however, has been a driving force throughout the advancement of text technologies in world history.  Bibliophilism has been referenced often in the late 1800s, but the power of the word extends to times as early as before the creation of the printing press, when a need to consume texts was not being fully met.

Through personal research I found great interest in the culture of the Victorian era middle class, as it was one of the most openly concrete examples of the impacts of bibliophilism on society.  The simple love for books has created an entire cultural placeholder that selectively advanced the expansion of texts and ideas.  Because of the high amounts of interest and captivating source material, I sunk much of my research into this time period when examining bibliophilishm.

I have found that the concept also applies greatly to the forms of texts we went over in chapters 5, 6, 9, and 12 of our book, A Companion to the History of the Book, as each of these chapters contains great examples of text advancing from the need to consume more text for information.   Take the Babylonian clay tablet in chapter 5 for example: the pressing need for infinitely more information led to the systematic dissolving, and reuse of text to fill said need.