The Minecraft bookshelf is missing something big.
The Minecraft bookshelf, first added in October 24th, 2009, is an exceptional decoration and utility block. It can be used in a multitude of areas, from decorating buildings such as libraries, giving life to rooms, to enchanting tools, armor and books at an enchanting table. However, it lacks obvious functionality in many areas in which it has great potential. This block that is almost as old as Minecraft itself hasn’t seen an update in almost 3 years when the texture was slightly changed and was made part of the crafting recipe for the lectern.
Real life bookshelves have functionality beyond decoration: storage. In real life, bookshelves are used as shelves for books. Obviously, that’s why it’s called a bookshelf, but Mojang seems to either not realize this or not care enough to make bookshelves functional storage for books. If the Minecraft bookshelf were to be made a functional storage block, it would make storage of books, book and quills and enchanted books much more convenient, and open up vast avenues of utility that the block can serve. This would be an inspiring addition for builders, giving them much more freedom in many possibilities for decoration, such as bookshelves to give a room a better, more distinct personality and atmosphere, libraries, etc. This would be an easy addition to the game that gives builders much more options with one of Minecraft’s oldest — but even still — neglected blocks. Clearly, a chest, barrel or other storage block looks awfully out of place for a library.
In fact, there is already a mod by CurseForge user zacomat has already made a mod called Giacomo’s Bookshelf that allows one to store books, book and quills or enchanted books inside of a portable, functional bookshelf. This achieves the function of what I am alluding to suggesting in this article exceptionally well. This mod even makes the texture of the bookshelf change depending on how many books are in the bookshelf.
In fact, this is another example of a generally poor quality of recent updates and a lack of new features being developed. For example, fireflies, despite already having been developed, were removed from the 1.19 update before it released due to easily avoided concerns regarding frog safety. There is many further examples, such as the split of 1.17 over 3 updates, however, fireflies are a particularly recent, and largely disliked change. Users have grown increasingly dissatisfied with the recent updates, sparking general anger from the Minecraft community in both conversation, videos, and from public figures relating to the topic. Minecraft isn’t headed in a great direction as it relates to player satisfaction, and this clearly hasn’t been the case since roughly mid-2020. While the bookshelf may seem insignificant, it is testament to a general direction that Minecraft is heading: back to its pre-2019 boom era.
Many Minecraft players seem to agree, with countless Minecraft feedback posts referencing this possible addition to the game, one post even having 2,148 votes at the time of posting this.
Many people who I have spoken to about Minecraft who once played but no longer play the game seemed to comment that eventually they ran out of things to do that they were interested in. As we have illustrated, there is many examples of things that can be added in to make the game more interesting, updates to the bookshelf being one easy, although significant one. This, in addition to many others, can aid in player retention rates; that is to say — how long a player plays Minecraft before they get bored and one day quit playing.
Overall, bookshelves are lame, but it can easily be changed. Let’s do that.
