When did I morph from being primarily a diligent reader of chess literature to a collector of chess books? How many others have experienced a similar change?
Doesn’t collector assume some sort of curatorship? I think I’ve slipped to accumulator.
Alex Relyea
Chess is a very broad construct. I see it as dealing with history (lives of chessplayers and recitation of significant events) all the way to specifics on how to play specialized systems that will do in a particularly annoying opponent. My collection is light on specifics and more weighted to the broad historical stuff. I tried perusing some specific stuff, precision is needed to play chess well in these machine guided days, but my brain is not up to it.
So I dream and collect more books, accumulate is certainly more like it! I used to have more chess books than anything else but with the domination of the internet, many books have become available cheap! And I have bit wholeheartedly. I am certain that there are not enough years left in my lifetime to get through all my books but they are around just in case I fancy picking one up. it has been so long since I was a diligent reader that I only remember now being an accumulator. I think it has to do with motivation in most people.
The first time you bought a book and then discovered that you already owned it.
Whenever feasible, I buy chess history and memoirs in Kindle format. Less space used in that house that could be used for other things. Some of the newer chess books in ebook interactive format are good as well. My position is that one can never have enough books, chess sets, chess boards and other classifications of toys. The person with the most at death wins.
You’re some kind of mind reader, aren’t you? 
Sometimes its nice to have a paper and ebook version…