Looks like upgrading to the latest version is going to be a whole heap of trouble, requiring a significant rewrite. Not sure I want to embark on that right now...

oh this is very similar to a mod I wanted to make. Awesome

My partner and I were trying to address some game design issues with the vanilla enchanting system and we landed on this design, so I had a go at implementing it. Definitely not perfect, but I think it's a huge improvement on the current system!

definitely gonna give it a go this evening.

Using chiseled bookshelves + building up a library of available enchants by exploring/trading is pretty much identical to what I was thinking of doing, but then I got too in the weeds with wanting to rework other villagers and cartography to help find structures for books (I think I had them as ancient scrolls) and it all fizzled out.

I think what you landed on is very solid :)

I did start working on a sort of "ruined library" structure to kind of demonstrate how the enchanting system works (because the game doesn't actually teach it at all) but I didn't finish it. It's possible there's still bugs in there, so please do let me know if you run into any issues.