The BookScore
Hello Book Nerd covers bookshops and libraries. This version of the BookScore is specifically for bookshops; we will not force libraries into retail criteria that do not fit them. A library score will have its own published questions before we use one.
A number should not ask for your trust without showing its work. Every shop on this site is scored the same way, by the people who actually walked around it: twenty criteria, four equal categories, twenty-five points each, one hundred points in total.
The number beside a shop is the plain average of its reviewers’ totals. The panel size and range sit beside it, and every individual score remains in the dated visit record.
What gets scored
Four categories, weighted equally, five criteria in each.
Selection and curation. Breadth and depth of inventory, local author representation, the quality of the staff picks, unique or rare finds, and special collections.
Atmosphere and design. Architectural interest, reading spaces, how photogenic it is, music and ambiance, and overall comfort.
Community connection. Events and programming, staff knowledge and friendliness, local partnerships, cultural significance, and how well it fits its neighbourhood.
Practical considerations. Accessibility, parking and transit, hours, amenities like a café or wifi, and family accommodations.
What the number means
- 90 to 100 — Exceptional. A destination in its own right.
- 80 to 89 — Outstanding. Worth a special trip.
- 70 to 79 — Very good. A solid community bookshop.
- 60 to 69 — Good. Does the job well.
- 50 to 59 — Fair. Room to grow.
- Below 50. Needs significant work.
A shop that scores 74 is not a bad bookshop. It is a bookshop that is very good at some things and thin on others, and the review says which is which. The point of a number is to make the comparison honest, not to hand out grades.
How we keep it honest
We never clean the data. No reviewer is excluded, no outlier is discarded, no response is reweighted, and no score is adjusted after the fact. If somebody gave a shop full marks and nobody else did, that reviewer’s numbers stay in and lift the average, and you can see them on the page. Weak data is better than no data, and the same instrument applied the same way every time is the only thing that makes any of these numbers comparable.
That is also why the reviewer count and the range sit beside every score. Two reviewers who agreed at 86 and 90 tell you something a single reviewer cannot. You should be able to see how confident a number is without having to ask.
Reviewers are anonymous, and they are labelled in the order their responses came in. Reviewer 1 in one visit is not Reviewer 1 in another.
What we do not score
We do not score how much we like the owner, and nobody pays to be here. We buy our own books. If a shop is not for you, the review says so in the same breath as it says who it is for, because a shop with nowhere to sit is not a worse bookshop, it is a different kind of afternoon.