When you freshly spawn in a randomly-generated world of Minecraft, you have all the liberty to rein over the vast terrains straight from the beginning and learn about the game at your own pace.
However, even after hours of adventures, some secrets still remain secret for most players.
Usually, when you begin, it won’t take you long to get familiar with items like crafting tables, beds, furnaces, and other useful items.
However, one of the game’s most useful yet notorious items – a lectern – still remains a mystery among most novice and seasoned gamers.
Of course, you will certainly encounter a lectern as soon as you locate a village in the generated world, but chances are you won’t be able to identify it, and even if you do, you may not know exactly what it is used for.
You can acquire a lectern in the game in myriad ways, such as in villages or by gathering certain items and crafting them.
Regardless of the way, you can certainly make the most out of it, especially when you are playing with friends. Here’s everything you need to know about a lectern in Minecraft.
How To Get a Lectern in Minecraft?
There are two different ways to get a lectern in Minecraft – you can either look for it in villages and other terrains or simply craft it using the crafting table by acquiring certain materials. Here are both of the ways to get a lectern in Minecraft listed in detail:
Natural Generation
A lectern can spawn naturally in Stronghold and Village Libraries, as well as in Ancient Cities. A Village Library has 10 bookshelves, each with a book on it.
Underneath the bookshelves are stairs and carpet tables that lead to a crafting table at the end of the library.
One or two librarians usually spawn inside this building as well. On the other hand, the Stronghold Library has lots of bookshelves, cobwebs, and a chandelier made of birch fences and torches. Sometimes chests spawn on top of some bookshelves containing paper, books, and more.
There’s also a ladder leading to another floor with more bookshelves. Likewise, you can also find a Lectern in Ancient City in Minecraft.
It appears only in the Deep Dark biome of Minecraft. It is a new cave biome that usually generates closer to the Bedrock level of your world.
You can identify it by the presence of sculk blocks growing in its area. Ancient Cities are usually found near the bottom of the map, under -20.
They appear at lower levels than most other biomes, so if you want to find one naturally, explore caves at negative heights.
Crafting – Step by Step
To make a lectern in Minecraft, start by placing three wooden slabs into a 3×3 grid. Fill the top row with three wooden blocks, place a bookshelf at the center of the second row, and then place one more wooden block directly underneath it.
Once you’ve made all of these blocks, simply drag the lectern into your inventory. Here’s the exact process step-by-step to help you make a Lectern in Minecraft with ease:
- Foremost of all, look for cows. You’ll need leather from their drops to make books, which you’ll need to make a bookshelf. To make a bookshelf, you’ll need three books, so look for cows until you find three pieces of leather.
- Next, you will need paper. To make paper, find sugarcane. Sugarcane grows on dirt or sand. Three pieces of sugarcane will make three sheets of paper, and nine total pieces will be needed to make a lectern. You can find nine pieces of sugarcane or grow it yourself in order to get nine pieces of paper.
- After that, you’ll need to chop down a tree to get your wooden slabs. Chop the logs into planks and those planks into slabs. Then, turn your sugarcane into the paper by arranging three sugarcanes in a row.
- You can use your leather and paper to make a book. The recipe for books is simple—you can place the leather and the paper anywhere on the crafting table to make a book. Each book requires one piece of leather and three pieces of paper to craft.
- Now, place your three books in the middle row of your crafting table. Surround them with wooden planks to make a bookshelf.
Lastly, you will need a bookshelf and some slabs to make a lectern. Place the bookshelf in the middle of the crafting menu and place several rows of slabs above it, on top of each other. Place one slab underneath your bookshelf for stability.
Ways To Use a Lectern in Minecraft
There are several ways to use a Lectern in Minecraft, such as:
Holding Books
Lecterns can hold a single book, or they can be used to display a written book that other players can read at the same time.
Right-clicking an empty lectern with a book and quill or written book places it, but right-clicking a lectern with a written book already occupying it opens an interface for you to read the book.
Books occupying a lectern can be retrieved through this interface, punching the lectern or destroying it if /gamerule doTileDrops is false.
Lecterns cannot hold enchanted books or normal books—instead, right-clicking on an occupied lectern with either of these does nothing and does not place the book inside; rather, these attempts result in an empty lectern being created.
Changing Profession
If a village has a lectern that a villager has not claimed, any villager can change their profession to a librarian if they have not already chosen a job site.
Redstone Signal
If a player turns a page in a book, the lectern that holds it emits a Redstone pulse that is one game tick long (0.5 Redstone ticks) when a page is turned. A Redstone comparator also records book reading and sends a signal depending on what page the player is currently on.
Because Bedrock Edition displays two pages of the book at once, the same signal strength increments require double the number of pages. For Java Edition, a book with only 1 page gives maximum signal strength.
However, if there are 2 or more pages in the book, only 1 signal strength will be outputted no matter what page you are on.
Fuel
You can use a lectern for smelting 1.5 items in a furnace if you have a lectern.
Note Blocks
Lecterns can be used to produce a “bass” sound when placed under note blocks.
Final Words
We hope this article has been useful for you and has answered your questions about lecterns in Minecraft. If you have any further queries, please feel free to comment. Hopefully, now you’ll be able to make a Lectern in Minecraft and make the most out of it.
