How to Make a Chiseled Bookshelf in Minecraft 1.20

Before the announcement of the Minecraft 1.20 update, all the bookshelves in-game were purely decorative. They looked like bookshelves but had no feature to store books in them. The only practical purpose of these bookshelves was to power the enchanting table in Minecraft. Now, things are about to change with the upcoming update. As silly as it might sound, you can finally store books on bookshelves in-game. All you need to do is figure out how to make a chiseled bookshelf in Minecraft and bring your home library to life.

How to Craft a Chiseled Bookshelf in Minecraft (2022)

Note: The chiseled bookshelf is only available as an experimental feature in Minecraft 1.20 Beta and Snapshot 22w46a at the moment. Everything from their texture to their mechanics is subject to change in the final release.

What is a Chiseled Bookshelf

The chiseled bookshelf is a storage block in Minecraft that allows you to store “book and quill”, written books, regular books, and even enchanted books. Each bookshelf can hold up to six books at one time. The number of books is visually displayed on the chiseled bookshelf, even though there is no visual indicator of the type of each book.

Moreover, unlike utility blocks or other storage blocks, there is also no unique UI available for this block. Instead, you have to directly walk up to the chiseled bookshelf and place books on it. But more on that later.

Items Required to Make a Chiseled Bookshelf

You only need to collect the following items to create a chiseled bookshelf in Minecraft:

• 6 Wood Planks (+ 3 to make planks)
• 3 Wood Slabs
• Crafting Table

You can use any type of wood in Minecraft to craft the chiseled bookshelf. The planks don’t even have to use the same type of wood in this crafting recipe. Now, for those unaware, you can easily get planks by putting wood logs in the crafting area. Though, if you want to use bamboo wood in Minecraft, you will have to first create a block of bamboo by combining wood. Then you can turn it into planks. Check out the linked guide for more information.

Meanwhile, you need to place three pieces of planks adjacent to each other in any row of the crafting area to make wood slabs. Three wood planks will give you six wood slabs. We only need three slabs to make a chiseled bookshelf in Minecraft.

Chiseled Bookshelf Crafting Recipe in Minecraft

Once you have collected all the materials, follow the steps below to craft a chiseled bookshelf in Minecraft:

1. First, fill the middle row of the crafting area with wood slabs.

2. Then, place wood planks in all the remaining cells of the crafting area. You need to completely fill the topmost and bottommost rows. And well, the output will be the chiseled bookshelf.

How to Use a Minecraft Chiseled Bookshelf

Using a chiseled bookshelf is simple in Minecraft. Follow these steps to quickly familiarize yourself with this new item in-game:

1. First, equip the chiseled bookshelf in your inventory and place it on a flat surface.

2. Then, equip the book-based item you want to place in the chiseled bookshelf and right-click or use the secondary action key on the bookshelf. The slot you are directly looking at in the chiseled bookshelf will get filled.

3. If you want to pick any book back from the chiseled bookshelf, you have to right-click or use the secondary action key. You have to look or aim at the book you want to pick while doing this action. Make sure you are not holding another book while doing so.

Note: This mechanic was introduced in the latest Minecraft Snapshot 22w46a. In previous snapshots, the chiseled bookshelf worked in a stack order, where you would first pick up books that were placed last.

Other Uses of Chiseled Bookshelf

• Redstone Signal: The chiseled bookshelf sends a Redstone signal based on the slot that is filled. The top left slot sends the weakest Redstone signal and the bottom right sends the strongest. Meanwhile, the signal strength increases in the remaining slots while going left to right and top to bottom.
• Redstone Trigger: Expanding on the Redstone functionality, the chiseled bookshelf gives out a triggering signal on each interaction with a selected column. So, for example, if you trigger slot A, it will continue to send a Redstone signal until you trigger it or any other slot. Triggering another slot increases or decreases the signal strength.

Make and Use a Chiseled Bookshelf in Minecraft

Whether you want to upgrade your Minecraft house ideas or simply want a new storage option in-game, the new chiseled bookshelves have your back. But they are just one of the exciting new features of the Minecraft 1.20 update. You can check our dedicated guide to learn about all the features we expect in the upcoming update. Having said that, do you think bookshelves are better than chiseled bookshelves? Tell us in the comments below!