The heart of Minecraft is — as the name suggests — crafting. The game has no shortage of things to craft, from weapons to various materials to build with and even decorations to spruce up your latest creation. Perhaps you want to build a sophisticated library to go in your town. Or, maybe you just want to add a bit of flair to your living room in the house you’ve created. Either way, you’re going to need some bookshelves. In this guide, we’ll run through the materials you need to create a bookshelf, as well as where to locate them.
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The materials
The recipe for a bookshelf is as simple as you’d expect. You simply need books and wood. More specifically, you’ll need:
- Three books
- Six wood planks (you can use acacia, birch, dark, jungle, oak, or spruce planks)
As you have six wood planks, you can make a bookshelf — they don’t all have to be the same type of wood. For example, you can have two acacia planks and four oak planks. As long as you have six planks in total, it’ll allow you to craft a bookshelf.
How to craft
If you’re new to Minecraft or haven’t played in a while, it might be a little confusing to get started with crafting. To start, you’ll need a crafting table, which can be made by combining four planks within your inventory menu. You’ll see four boxes in the top right of the screen after you click into the menu. From here, place a plank in each box, and you’ll then see the crafting menu appear in the box on the right.
Click on that box, and you’ll now have a crafting table. Add it to your hotbar and place it down in front of you to begin crafting. At this point, it works similarly to crafting within your inventory. Press Use on the crafting table, and you’ll see a set of 3×3 boxes in the top right. Make sure you place a plank in each of the boxes on the top, a book in each box below that, and a plank in each box on the bottom. If you just place all the ingredients in at random, it won’t allow you to make the bookshelf. Once you’ve placed them, click the Bookshelf in the box on the right to finish crafting it.
Where to find the materials
You’ll most likely have a stockpile of logs in your inventory from exploring and chopping trees. To get planks, you’ll need at least one log version of that type of wood. For example, one jungle log equals four jungle wood planks. Since you need six planks to make a bookshelf, you’ll need at least two pieces of wood.
As for the books, these can be found in libraries within Strongholds. Alternatively, you can make a book with three papers and one leather. To make three papers, you’ll need three sugar canes; one leather is made from four rabbit hides. These will need to be made at a crafting station. Note that it’s much easier to find a book than to make one.