Traveler's Lectern

By
GBTI

Part of the Traveler's Series: a lectern whose book comes back after a player takes it, on Minecraft 1.20 to 26.3, with an in-game lectern manager on 1.21.6 and later.

Creating a Traveler's Lectern with a book refresh rate of 10 seconds.

Description

Traveler's Lectern

Part of the Traveler's Series. Traveler's Lectern makes a lectern whose book comes back after a player takes it. Leave server rules, quests or travel notes out for everyone: players read the book or take a copy, and the lectern refills itself after a cooldown.

Features

The book comes back on the lectern one cooldown after a player takes it
Anyone can read the book, and take it by sneaking with an empty hand or with the lectern's Take Book button
Only operators can break a Traveler's Lectern
An in-game lectern manager on Minecraft 1.21.6 and later: /lecterns
Server-side only: players need no client mod

One jar runs on Minecraft 1.20 to 1.20.4, 1.21 to 1.21.11 and 26.1 to 26.3. Fabric loads the build that matches your server, so a server that moves to another supported version keeps the same jar. It needs Fabric Loader 0.16.10 or newer and Fabric API. Minecraft 1.20.5 and 1.20.6 are not supported.

Upgrading from 1.2.x keeps every Traveler's Lectern and its book.

Configuration

The mod can be configured through files in the config/travelers-lectern/ directory:

Basic Settings (`travelers_lectern_config.txt`)

debug_logging=false

debug_logging: Enable or disable debug logging for detailed information in server logs.

Lectern Data

Lecterns are saved in lecterns.json in the configuration folder, by dimension and position. The mod manages this file, so don't edit it by hand.
Releases before 2.0.0 saved them in travelers_lecterns.json. 2.0.0 imports that file once and leaves it as it was, so going back to an older release still finds your lecterns.
If lecterns.json cannot be read, the mod saves nothing until it can, rather than writing over it. Its previous version is kept beside it as lecterns.json.bak.

Commands

Operators (permission level 4) use these while looking at a lectern with a book on it, up to 20 blocks away:

/lecterns: on 1.21.6 and later, opens the lectern manager.
/travelers_lectern create [time]: makes it a Traveler's Lectern, with a cooldown in seconds (default: 1800, half an hour).
/travelers_lectern edit <time>: changes its cooldown.
/travelers_lectern destroy: turns it back into a plain lectern. If its book is out, the book goes back on first.

Usage

Place a lectern and put a book on it.
Face it and run /lecterns, or /travelers_lectern create.
Players read the book as usual, and take it by sneaking with an empty hand or with the Take Book button.
The book comes back one cooldown after it was taken. Until then, the empty lectern takes no other book and tells players when theirs returns.

A Traveler's Lectern's book open in game, with Done and Take Book

On 1.21.6 and later, /lecterns opens a menu built from Minecraft's own dialog screens:

Facing a lectern that holds a book, it offers to make it a Traveler's Lectern, with the respawn time in minutes.
Facing a Traveler's Lectern, it opens that lectern's editor: change the respawn time, give yourself a copy, use the book in your hand instead, put a taken book back now, teleport there, or turn it back into a plain lectern.
Anywhere else, it lists every Traveler's Lectern on the server. Hover one to see where it is and whether its book is out.

The server checks every button press again, so only operators can change anything.

The lectern manager on Minecraft 26.2, listing every Traveler's Lectern with Add the lectern I'm facing

A lectern's editor: its book, where it stands, whether the book is out, and the respawn time in minutes

🛠 Development

This mod was built using:

Java 17 (Minecraft 1.20.x), Java 21 (1.21.x) and Java 25 (26.x), from one source tree with Stonecutter
Fabric API
Gson for JSON parsing and serialization

Project Structure

src/main/java: Contains the main mod logic.
src/main/resources: Includes assets, mixins, and configuration files.
versions/: One folder per jar, naming the Minecraft version it builds against.

Key Files

TravelersLectern.java: Initializes the mod and handles server events.
Lecterns.java: Taking the book, the respawn tick, and what the commands and the manager do.
LecternStore.java: Reads and saves lectern data, and imports the file older releases left.
LecternBooks.java: A lectern's book as text and back, on every supported version.
LecternBlockMixin.java: Hands clicks on a Traveler's Lectern to the mod; other lecterns stay vanilla.
dialog/: The lectern manager (1.21.6 and later).

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AI disclosure

Traveler's Lectern is developed by the GBTI Network, a team with over 20 years of combined experience in product and application development.

We use modern AI coding tools (Claude Code, Codex, and OpenClaw) as assistants in our workflow.

License

This project is licensed under the GNU General Public License v3.0