A librarian is the most valuable villager you can make: they sell enchanted books, including the game-changing Mending, for a handful of emeralds. Turning a villager into a librarian takes one block, a lectern, and with a simple reroll trick you can fish for exactly the book you want. This guide covers how to make one and how to get the trades you actually need.
Everything here is confirmed in the current 2026 version of Minecraft (26.2).
Quick answer: place a lectern next to an unemployed villager and it becomes a librarian. Before trading, break and replace the lectern to reroll its enchanted-book offer until you get the one you want, then trade to lock it in.
Librarian at a Glance
| Detail | Value |
|---|---|
| Job block | Lectern (4 wooden slabs + 1 bookshelf) |
| Requirement | An unemployed adult villager |
| Sells | Enchanted books, paper, name tags |
| Reroll | Break the lectern before any trade |
Step 1: Make a Lectern
The lectern is the librarian’s job-site block. Craft it from 4 wooden slabs and 1 bookshelf: put a bookshelf in the center, three slabs across the top, and one slab in the bottom center.
Step 2: Find an Unemployed Villager
You need an unemployed adult villager, the one wearing plain brown robes with no profession. Villages usually have a few. If they are all employed, you can free one up by breaking its current job block (as long as it has never traded), which turns it back into an unemployed villager.
One catch: the villager must not already have another job-site block claimed nearby, or it may take that instead of your lectern.
Step 3: Place the Lectern
Set the lectern right next to the unemployed villager. After a moment, green sparkles appear, and the villager changes outfit into a librarian. Right-click it to open its trades; it now sells enchanted books.
The Reroll Trick (Fish for Mending)
Here is the important part. A fresh librarian offers a random enchanted book, and it might not be the one you want. As long as you have not completed a single trade with it, you can reroll:
- Break the lectern. The villager becomes unemployed again.
- Place the lectern back. It reclaims the job and rolls a new random book.
- Repeat until it offers the book you want, like Mending, Unbreaking III, or Efficiency.
To speed this up, many players put the lectern on a sticky piston with a lever, so you can flip the lever to remove and replace it instead of mining it each time. Once you see the trade you want, trade for it; that locks the librarian’s profession and trades for good, so it will always offer that book. Any librarian can be rerolled into a Mending seller, so you are not tied to a specific village or biome. You will need emeralds to buy the books, and the enchanted book goes on your gear at an anvil.
Frequently Asked Questions
Place a lectern next to an unemployed adult villager. It claims the lectern and becomes a librarian that sells enchanted books.
Craft it from 4 wooden slabs and 1 bookshelf: bookshelf in the center, three slabs on top, and one slab in the bottom center.
Before completing any trade, break the lectern to make the villager unemployed, then place it again for a new random book. Repeat until you get the enchantment you want.
Reroll the lectern until the librarian offers Mending, then trade for it. Any librarian can roll Mending, so keep breaking and replacing the lectern until it appears.
It must be an unemployed adult (plain robes) with no other job block claimed nearby, and it must not be a nitwit. Make sure the lectern is right next to it, and no other workstation is competing.
Yes. Once you complete any trade, the villager’s profession and trades are locked permanently, so only trade once you see the book you want.
Librarians are the backbone of any enchanting setup: place a lectern on an unemployed villager, reroll for Mending and other must-have books, then trade to lock it in. Build a few and you will never need an enchanting table for the big enchantments again.
