Looseleaf notebooks are ones where the pages can be torn out easily. there is no spine. A legal pad is normally a looseleaf notebook. A "composition" notebook

Looseleaf notebooks are ones where the pages can be torn out easily. there is no spine. A legal pad is normally a looseleaf notebook. A "composition" notebook is bound with a spine (which could be a spiral binding). As an example, moleskine notebooks are like this.