Making a bookshelf in Minecraft plays a greater purpose than mere decoration. It’s a pivotal ingredient in crafting several items you’ll need rather shortly (hint: one is enchanting in Minecraft) and is highly recommended when building a house in-game. Moreover, it plays an exciting part in the life of villagers. You’ll see it in nearly every in-game settlement of this type. We know you’d like to get to crafting to explore its benefits. However, we ought to warn you to stock up on resources—one particular use requires over a dozen bookshelves for maximum efficiency. With that acknowledged, let’s get into how to make a Bookshelf in Minecraft.
1. Make a Bookshelf in Minecraft Survival Mode
Let’s not twiddle our thumbs when there are materials to gather. Lots of them, if you are crafting what we presume. Here’s all you need to know:
Materials needed to create a Minecraft Bookshelf
You must collect the following materials to craft a Bookshelf in Minecraft:
- 3x Book
- 6x Wood Plank
Seems simple, right? Though we’ll make a full guide on the first material, here are two things to keep in mind:
- Wood Plan refers to any type. To clarify, you can not only use 6x of either Spruce Plank, Dark Oak Plank, Jungle Plank, Oak Plank, Birch Plank, Warped Plank, Crimson Plank, or Acacia Plank but also mix any together in a recipe.
- To craft a single Book, you need to collect 3x Paper and 1x Leather.
Recipe to make a bookshelf in Minecraft
Got the aforementioned items ready and itching to get into it? Sure thing—making a Bookshelf within Minecraft works like this:
- As you might have guessed, you must create, place, and use the Crafting Table first.
- Now that the crafting menu is open, you must arrange the materials in the following order:
- First row. Place Wood Plank in all three empty boxes (Wood Plank, Wood Plank, Wood Plank)
- Second row. Put Book in all three empty slots (Book, Book, Book)
- Third row. Identical to the first row.
Important. We intentionally kept the number vague. That’s because, like all stackable items in the game, you can place 1 or up to 64 of each item at once. Minecraft will determine how many Bookshelves you can craft based on your arrangement, with a maximum of 64 at once.
- Followed our instructions for creating a Minecraft Bookshelf closely? If so, you’ll see 1 to 64 Bookshelf items appear in the singular empty box on the right-hand side.
- Drag the Bookshelf to any slot on your hotbar or inventory.
- You finished crafting a Bookshelf and can now use it as you see fit.
2. Add a Bookshelf using Minecraft Creative Mode
Don’t feel like going through the trouble of gathering all the necessary items? Are you, perhaps, an admin on a single-player world or a multiplayer server? If the answer is yes, you don’t have to. Instead:
- Switch to Creative Mode (type /gamemode creative) and head over to your inventory.
- Click the compass icon in the top right corner, and search for “bookshelf”.
- Drag the Bookshelf item to your hotbar.
- You can now place Bookshelf infinitely unless you switch back to Survival Mode.
3. Adding Bookshelves via Minecraft command
The problem with the method above is that you’ll need to spend some time stacking the item, so it converts into Survival Mode. You can save yourself the time and effort of switching and stacking. Utilize a /give command for Bookshelf in Minecraft like this:
- Are you using Java Edition version 1.8 or later, or any version released besides the one below? Here’s what to enter:
/give @p bookshelf 1 0 - Playing on an older Java Edition, particularly from 1.13 to 1.8? The command is a tad different:
/give @p bookshelf 1
The number “1” signifies the number of items you’ll acquire. Replace it with a number from 1 to 64.
4. Trade for a Bookshelf
Discovered a village in Minecraft, or decided to breed villagers? Either of the two works, because it means you won’t need to craft or use methods 2 or 3. Instead, you can interact with novice-level librarians and do the following based on the game version:
- Java Edition: There’s a 50% chance one will sell you 1 Bookshelf for 9 Emerald.
- Bedrock Edition: You have a 2⁄3 (66.67%) chance of one asking 9 Emerald for 1 Bookshelf.
5. Find Bookshelves in the Minecraft world
The final way to acquire a Bookshelf comes down to luck and your equipment. After all, the last two places are crawling with powerful hostile mobs. You can find Bookshelf in these places:
- Village: Depending on the village size and layout, you can find a few or lots of Bookshelves inside regular houses and or village libraries.
- Stronghold: Underground structures that contain an end portal can also have one or two massive libraries. They’ll be split between standalone pillars and pillars embedded in walls. One-level libraries will have 161 Bookshelves total, whereas those with a balcony can have 233.
- Woodland Mansion: Rooms in Woodland Mansions have a chance to generate a varying number of Bookshelves.
Note. Unlike many blocks in-game, you can break down a Bookshelf empty-handed, but this will require 2.25 seconds. We suggest using an Axe of any quality to drastically cut down collection time.