Title: Goblin Shelf: Book Reviews & Reading Lists Author: Goblin Department Published: October 18, 2026 Last modified: October 18, 2026 --- Search plugins ![](https://ps.w.org/goblin-shelf/assets/banner-772x250.png?rev=3753658) ![](https://ps.w.org/goblin-shelf/assets/icon-256x256.png?rev=3753658) # Goblin Shelf: Book Reviews & Reading Lists By [Goblin Department](https://profiles.wordpress.org/goblindept/) [Download](https://downloads.wordpress.org/plugin/goblin-shelf.1.0.0.zip) * [Details](https://wordpress.org/plugins/goblin-shelf/#description) * [Reviews](https://wordpress.org/plugins/goblin-shelf/#reviews) * [Installation](https://wordpress.org/plugins/goblin-shelf/#installation) * [Development](https://wordpress.org/plugins/goblin-shelf/#developers) [Support](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/goblin-shelf/) ## Description **Goblin Shelf** shows a bookcase with book spines on any page. Hover over a book to see its cover, its author and its average rating; click it to open its card with all the reviews. * **Anyone can review**: a visitor adds a book with a rating from 1 to 5 stars,“ the best thing” and “the worst thing”. Reviews are published straight away, with no moderation. * **A bookcase with three shelves**: the modern bookcase has room for 33 books on each shelf, 99 in total. When the shelves are full no more books can be added( the books on the shelves can still be reviewed). The limit is also a safeguard: if you turn on Open Library or Google Books, it caps the number of cover requests a visit can make to those services (never more than 99), so they are not overloaded and do not block your website. * **Search and sort**: by title, author, most recent reviews or best rated. * **Covers**: whoever adds a book can upload a photo of its cover from the form( optional), and the administrator can also choose one from the Media Library on the book screen. Without a cover the shelf shows only the spine. Optionally you can also turn on **Open Library** and/or **Google Books** (both **off by default**) in _Goblin Shelf Settings Book search_, so the form suggests books and covers while the person types. Covers from these services are **not copied** to your website: they are shown from the service’s own server. * **Translation ready**: Goblin Shelf follows the language of your website. It is fully internationalized, so translations are provided by the community at translate.wordpress.org. * **Privacy**: deleting the plugin deletes all its data. No name, email or account is asked for, and nothing about the visitor is stored except a temporary, scrambled( hashed) abuse counter that expires within one hour. By default no external service is contacted; the two optional book search services (Open Library and Google Books) are off until you turn them on. Goblin Shelf adds a suggested text for your privacy policy in _Settings Privacy Policy Guide_. #### How to use it Goblin Shelf works with a **shortcode**: a short word between square brackets that you type in a page, and that WordPress replaces with the bookshelf. The shortcode is: ``` [goblin_shelf] ``` 1. Go to _Pages Add New Page_ and give the page a title. 2. Click the **+** button, search for the **Shortcode** block and add it. 3. Type `[goblin_shelf]` inside the block (with the square brackets, nothing else). 4. Click _Publish_ and then _View Page_. The same instructions, with a copy button for the shortcode, are in _Goblin Shelf Settings Help_. #### Goblin Shelf Pro Goblin Shelf Pro is a separate, paid plugin by the same developer. It adds: the Classic and Youthful styles, country and school years, reviews sent by email to the teacher, teachers’ recommendations, moderation, CSV import and export, control over your data on uninstall, a library mode with recommended ages, filtering the shelf by school year or age, approving reviews from the email with a private link, an approval log, a reviews screen with filters and a button to delete all data. None of these features is included in this free plugin. They are described in _Goblin Shelf Settings Pro_, which has a link to the developer’s website. You can get Goblin Shelf Pro at [goblindepartment.com/goblin_shelf](https://www.goblindepartment.com/goblin_shelf). The same link appears as “Pro” next to the author in the list of plugins. ### External services By default Goblin Shelf does **not** contact any external service. Two optional services can be turned on in _Goblin Shelf Settings Book search_. Both are **off by default**: * **Open Library** (https://openlibrary.org, Internet Archive). Only if you turn on “Search for books and covers on Open Library”. When someone types the title of a book in the review form, that text is sent to Open Library from the browser of that person (and, as in any web request, the IP address of the visitor). The form tells the visitor about it. When a visitor chooses a book, only the identifier of its cover is saved. The cover is **not downloaded**: it is loaded from covers. openlibrary.org by the browser of each visitor, in the background shortly after the shelf is shown (so it is ready when the pointer reaches the book), as the Open Library cover guidelines ask, and that request also sends the visitor’s IP address to Open Library. The plugin asks the browser not to send the address of your page with that request. A link back to Open Library is shown below the shelf. [Covers API guidelines](https://openlibrary.org/dev/docs/api/covers) · [Terms and privacy](https://archive.org/about/terms.php) * **Google Books** (https://books.google.com). Only if you turn on “Search for books and covers on Google Books”. The same search text and the IP address of the visitor are sent to Google. The cover found is not downloaded or stored either: it is shown from books.google.com, which means that the visitors who load the shelf also send their IP address to Google. Google’s terms do not allow keeping permanent copies of the content of its API, which is why the images are never saved on your website. The plugin includes the required attribution. [Terms of service](https://developers.google.com/books/terms)· [Google APIs terms](https://developers.google.com/terms) · [Google Privacy](https://policies.google.com/privacy) Covers remain the property of their rights holders. Covers uploaded by visitors or chosen by the administrator are normal Media Library images and are stored on your website. If you turn them on, mention these services in the privacy policy of your website( especially if your visitors are minors). Goblin Shelf adds a suggested text, adapted to the services you have turned on, in _Settings Privacy Policy Guide_. If you need to block external covers on the whole site (for example, while you wait for consent), use the filter `goblinshelf_external_covers` (return `false`). To load covers only when the pointer reaches a book instead of in the background, use `goblinshelf_preload_covers`( return `false`). The only other link to another website is the “Pro” link next to the author in the list of plugins and the optional “Get Goblin Shelf Pro” button in _Goblin Shelf Settings Pro_, which open the website of the developer when you click them. ### Credits The images of the bookcase and the spines (folder `assets/img/`) were generated with ChatGPT (OpenAI) and are distributed under the same license as the plugin ( GPL v2 or later). ## Installation 1. Upload the `goblin-shelf` folder to `/wp-content/plugins/`, or install the .zip from _Plugins Add New Upload Plugin_. 2. Activate the plugin. 3. Insert `[goblin_shelf]` in a page (use a _Shortcode_ block). Step by step instructions: _Goblin Shelf Settings Help_. ## FAQ ### How many books fit on the bookcase? The bookcase has three shelves with room for 33 books each: 99 books. The number comes from the real measurements of the modern bookcase: a shelf is about 1015 px wide when the page is 1200 px wide, and a typical spine plus the gap between books takes about 30 px. The bookcase is drawn so that 33 books always fit on a shelf, whatever the width of the page. On narrow screens it keeps its proportions and is scaled down to fit, with no sideways scrolling. The limit also has a second purpose: with Open Library or Google Books turned on, the covers of the shelf are requested from those services in the background, and the limit keeps that to 99 requests at most per visit, which avoids overloading them and being blocked. ### What happens when the shelves are full? No new book can be added: the form says so, the server refuses it, and a book created in the dashboard stays as a draft. The books that are on the shelves can still be reviewed. Delete a book (_Goblin Shelf Goblin Shelf_) to make room. ### Are reviews moderated? No. They are published as soon as they are sent. Protection against abuse: a hidden field for bots and a limit of 30 reviews per hour from the same IP address (filter` goblinshelf_ip_limit`). You can delete any book or review from the dashboard (_Goblin Shelf Goblin Shelf_ and _Goblin Shelf Reviews_). If your website is behind a proxy or a CDN, use the filter `goblinshelf_ip` to give the real IP of the visitor. ### Why does a book have no cover? Covers are optional. When adding a book, the form lets you upload a photo of the cover (JPG, PNG, WebP or GIF; it is reduced in the browser and checked again on the server). It is only used if the book has no cover yet. You can also open the book in _Goblin Shelf Goblin Shelf_ and choose or replace the image from your Media Library. If you turn on Open Library or Google Books in _Goblin Shelf Settings Book search_, the cover of the book chosen from the suggestions is shown straight from that service. It is **not** downloaded or stored on your website (only a short reference is saved), and it stops being shown if you turn the service off. You can replace it at any time with an image from your Media Library. ### What data is stored? For each book, its title, its author and optionally its cover (an image saved to your Media Library); for each review, the rating, “the best thing” and “the worst thing”. Nothing about the person who writes it. The visitor’s browser keeps locally(` localStorage`) a list of the books already reviewed, only to warn about duplicates; it contains no personal data and it is not sent anywhere. To limit abuse, a one- way hash of the visitor’s IP address is kept in a temporary counter (a WordPress transient) for up to one hour; the IP address itself is not saved. If you turn on Open Library or Google Books, a cover chosen from the suggestions is saved only as a short reference (for example `ol:12345`), not as an image. ### How do I change the language? Goblin Shelf uses the language of your website (_Settings General Site Language_). Translations are provided by the community through translate.wordpress.org and are installed by WordPress like any other plugin translation. The dashboard is shown in the language of each user’s profile. ### What happens to my data if I delete the plugin? **All the data of Goblin Shelf is permanently deleted** when you delete the plugin from _Plugins Installed plugins_ (deactivating it deletes nothing): the books, the reviews (also those in the trash), the cover images that Goblin Shelf saved to your Media Library (those uploaded from the form), the settings and the temporary data. Images that you chose yourself from the Media Library are your own files and are not deleted. This cannot be undone, so make a backup first if you want to keep your books and reviews. If another Goblin Shelf plugin (for example Goblin Shelf Pro) is installed, nothing is deleted, so you can switch from the free to the Pro version without losing anything. ### I had more than 99 books (for example, from Goblin Shelf Pro) Only the first 99 books (the oldest) are shown on the shelves. ## Reviews There are no reviews for this plugin. ## Contributors & Developers “Goblin Shelf: Book Reviews & Reading Lists” is open source software. The following people have contributed to this plugin. Contributors * [ Goblin Department ](https://profiles.wordpress.org/goblindept/) [Translate “Goblin Shelf: Book Reviews & Reading Lists” into your language.](https://translate.wordpress.org/projects/wp-plugins/goblin-shelf) ### Interested in development? [Browse the code](https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/goblin-shelf/), check out the [SVN repository](https://plugins.svn.wordpress.org/goblin-shelf/), or subscribe to the [development log](https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/log/goblin-shelf/) by [RSS](https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/log/goblin-shelf/?limit=100&mode=stop_on_copy&format=rss). ## Changelog #### 1.0.0 * First public release. * Modern bookcase with three shelves of 33 books, scaled down to fit narrow screens instead of showing a horizontal scrollbar. * Visitor reviews (1 to 5 stars, the best and the worst thing) published straight away, with a hidden field for bots and a limit per IP address. * Search and sort with unified controls: same height, typography and shape, full width on narrow screens. * Covers uploaded from the form or chosen from the Media Library. * Ready for translation through translate.wordpress.org. * Optional book and cover search on Open Library and Google Books, both off by default (_Goblin Shelf Settings Book search_). Covers from these services are shown from their own servers and are never downloaded to your Media Library. They are fetched in the background shortly after the shelf is shown, so they are ready when the pointer reaches a book (filter `goblinshelf_preload_covers` to turn that off). The limit of 99 books also caps the number of requests to those services. * Deleting the plugin deletes all its data (books, reviews, covers saved by Goblin Shelf, settings). Nothing is deleted if another Goblin Shelf plugin, such as Goblin Shelf Pro, is installed. * Privacy: suggested privacy policy text (_Settings Privacy Policy Guide_), a notice in the form when a search service is on, and no page address sent with cover requests. * “Pro” link next to the author in the list of plugins and in the settings, to get Goblin Shelf Pro. * _Settings Pro_ describes the features of Goblin Shelf Pro, a separate paid plugin. * Light and fast: statistics are calculated with a single aggregate query, each review is saved in a single insert, reviews are fetched only when the pointer rests on a book, and the script loads with `defer`. ## Meta * Version **1.0.0** * Last updated **2 days ago** * Active installations **Fewer than 10** * WordPress version ** 5.8 or higher ** * Tested up to **7.1.3** * PHP version ** 7.4 or higher ** * Tags * [books](https://wordpress.org/plugins/tags/books/)[bookshelf](https://wordpress.org/plugins/tags/bookshelf/) [library](https://wordpress.org/plugins/tags/library/)[reviews](https://wordpress.org/plugins/tags/reviews/) [school](https://wordpress.org/plugins/tags/school/) * [Advanced View](https://wordpress.org/plugins/goblin-shelf/advanced/) ## Ratings No reviews have been submitted yet. [Your review](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/goblin-shelf/reviews/#new-post) [See all reviews](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/goblin-shelf/reviews/) ## Contributors * [ Goblin Department ](https://profiles.wordpress.org/goblindept/) ## Support Got something to say? Need help? [View support forum](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/goblin-shelf/)