bibliotaph

• bibliotaphist

From French bibliotaphe, from biblio- + Ancient Greek τάφος (táphos, “burial, tomb”). By surface analysis biblio- +‎ -taph.

bibliotaph (plural bibliotaphs)

1. (rare) One who "buries" books, typically by hoarding them unread, hiding them, locking them away, or otherwise shutting them up and keeping them from use
   • 1866 August 31, The Bookseller:

     He was, by his knowledge of the intellectual value of his store, a little bit of a bibliotaph: we have reason to think he had this feeling to an extent he knew nothing of himself.

   • 1888, William Blades, Enemies of Books:

     The late Sir Thomas Phillipps, of Middle Hill, was a remarkable instance of a bibliotaph. He bought bibliographical treasures simply to bury them.

   • 1898, Leon H. Vincent, The Bibliotaph And Other People:

     The bibliotaph buries books; not literally, but sometimes with as much effect as if he had put his books underground. There are several varieties of him. The dog-in-the-manger bibliotaph is the worst; he uses his books but little himself, and allows others to use them not at all. On the other hand, a man may be a bibliotaph simply from inability to get at his books. He may be homeless, a bachelor, a denizen of boarding-houses, a wanderer upon the face of the earth.

   • 1950, Holbrook Jackson, The Anatomy of Bibliomania, page 534:

     the vast collection of State-papers [...] were found only when they accidentally fell out of a false ceiling of his chambers in Lincoln's Inn; but doubtless he was a purposeful bibliotaph, otherwise those documents might not have survived those revolutionary times.