Minecraft wiki entry for Diamonds, associated text: If the player can manage to get a tool with Silk Touch, this can significantly reduce the difficulty of obtaining bookshelves. If they find a village, they often contain a house with a number of bookshelves. Bookshelves can also be found in stronghold libraries. If they have Silk Touch, they can simply steal the bookshelves whole. Even without Silk Touch, they can still get the books by mining the bookshelves but must provide wood to re-craft the bookshelves.