Some people spend their entire lives collecting books, building a library, and sharing stories with the public. One of these so-called "bookworms" in Sichuan, China has opened his own library that has around 50,000 books. 

69 year old, Chen Guangwei, from Bazhong City in Sichuan province, spent more than 30 years collecting books. With only a primary school education, his biggest dream was to gain more knowledge.

The books did not come easy. Chen runs a business collecting waste, and has an annual salary of about 20-thousand yuan. He says he doesnt know how much money and effort he's put into collecting his impressive book collection of around 50-thousand books.

Chen rents a basement near a primary school to keep them all,  he's named it "Guang Wei Library." The library is open to the public. 

"There wasn't a library here, so I wanted to build one and offer the service for free. Now the library has about 50 thousand books, on many topics including: politics, military battles, diplomacy, economics and so on," Chen said.

Chen called "bookworm" by people in his town.

His home is just a street away from his library. The simple loft room is filled with books, and simple tools made by himself with iron wire and nails to clean and organize.

To share his treasures with more people and find a home to keep it, Chen decided to donate over one thousand books to Sichuan Provincial Library. Most of them are ancient books from Qing dynasty, including the Kangxi Dictionary.

"Collecting books is like planting a tree, our descendants can enjoy the shade under the tree for years to come," Chen said.

Chen said someone came one time to try and buy his collection for 3 million yuan. But it's hard for him to sell even one of them. He prefers giving them to the public for all to enjoy.