Five laws of library science

[AbeMania]

While jnovel isn't a library it is a large collection of reading content. How would you rate it based on the five laws of library science? I'd give it a 4/5, half point reductions for the first and fourth rule

[Geezer Weasalopes]

For the non-Librarians out there, the Five Laws of Library Science is a concept laid out by S. R. Ranganathan in a book by that name published in 1931.

In brief, they are:

• Books are for use.
• Every person his (or her) book.
• Every book its reader.
• Save the time of the reader.
• A library is a growing organism

At the time, these were kinda radical concepts.

1. Books are for use.
   If they aren't being used, what the heck good are they?
2. Every person their book.
   Every reader desires a [book]. Get it to them. It is not the place of library staff to make judgements concerning the material sought.
3. Every book its reader.
   There's a reader out there, somewhere, for every [book]. Seriously.
4. Save the time of the reader.
   Do what you can to simplify the process of matching readers and [books].
   Cataloging.
   How materials are arranged for retrieval.
   Bibliographies and finding aids.
   Reference services.
   In all ways, consider the end user when designing library related systems.
5. A library is a growing organism.
   Libraries aren't static.
   They grow and change to reflect the needs of their users and the technologies available.
   Libraries need to be willing to change to remain relevant to society.
   [Books] are added, and [no longer relevant books] are removed; while some may cry revisionism or censorship, the fact remains that our knowledge of reality is constantly changing and materials published years past reflecting then state of the art knowledge may now be sufficiently inaccurate that it would be better to have nothing locally than to have these. [This is still a hotly debated topic, let me assure you.]

2 & 3 are tightly intertwined concepts. And sometimes in conflict with aspects of 5. Not judging what the reader seeks, and not judging the content of materials available... At what point does the library say, "Um, if you are researching the historical state of knowledge or historical attitudes, yeah, we get it, but if you are looking for this stuff as a source of knowledge to build your life upon, um, no, we aren't providing it because it's been legitimately debunked or superseded by later research." An aspect of librarianship none of us really enjoys, or at least I hope not!

---

J-Novel Club is a publishing firm, not a library.
From that perspective the Five Laws of Library Science are irrelevant.
But one can still look at J-Novel Club within its field of focus, kinda.

1. Books are for use sale.
   Um, yes.
   In that J-Novel will gladly sell you copies of anything they publish.
   If they don't publish it, they can't sell it to you.
   They do have a list within the forums of what LNs and Manga are currently licensed for English, and by whom, which is something I'm not aware of any other publisher doing; that's much more of a library reference & referral thing.

2. Every reader purchaser their book.
   If it falls within J-Novel Club's focus, and isn't currently licensed by someone else, J-Novel Club will give some level of consideration to licensing requests; they can't publish anything that the original publisher isn't willing to license to JNC.
   If JNC has an active license, they'll sell to anyone who can deal with their sales interface.

3. Every book their reader purchaser.
   JNC's livelihood is selling books.
   Trust me, they want to get the potential readership for every title in their catalogue aware that it's available.
   Sales through other retail outlets can be problematical, but that lies with the other retail outlets, not JNC; this is why JNC having their own direct sales mechanism is a lovely thing.

4. Save the time of the reader purchaser.
   JNC tries.
   Their sales catalog interface is constantly changing as they attempt to improve the ability of potential purchasers to locate the works for sale from JNC.
   It isn't perfect.
   No such interface is.
   You can get in touch with staff and fellow readers far more easily at JNC than any other publisher I'm aware of, in pretty much any field. Seriously.

5. A library publisher is a growing organism.
   JNC has a constantly expanding list of titles available for sale.
   Within their field, they attempt to reflect the diversity of what is being published.
   They started as a digital publisher, mainly.
   They've expanded to paperbacks in some cases, where they could see revenues justifying such a move.
   They're now adding audiobooks.
   Their web interface is being upgraded on a regular basis. A recent upgrade means it's now possible to purchase digital manga directly from JNC, as well as a couple of works that sold at a different price from all of their other LNs.
   They've got the forums as part of the website, Twitter for announcements, Twitch when possible for coverage of their Convention presentations and suchlike, and an active Discord; they didn't start with all of this, and there's every sign that they'll continue investigating means of improving their interactions with their readership.

JNC has a wide variety of titles, many of which I enjoy; to my knowledge, the ones I don't enjoy have solid reader bases. That's kinda a 2 & 3 thing, in that they're doing well at match my reading habits while also matching other individual's reading habits that don't align with mine. So they're getting me books I like, and finding readers for works they've licensed that I don't like; that's a good thing.

Assigning a numerical rating?
Not happening.
But I hang out here, so clearly I think they're onto something.