So I was looking at the horde of peasants and assistant pig wranglers and whatnot queuing at my bookcase, to the point where I had to get a second one just to have any chance of using it. And worse yet, leaving books all over my floor and endtables and whatnot.

Now it seems to me like most people in the middle ages were illiterate. Even nobles were often illiterate, and early enough, even kings. (IIRC Charlemagne was the first germanic king to even try to learn to read... but apparently without ever becoming really good at it.) Even in administration before the High Middle Ages or so, pretty much only in Italy you'd find any noteworthy number of people who can read and write without being clergy or merchants.

Furthermore, IIRC there is a quest which also makes it fairly evident that most peasants are supposed to be illiterate in the game either.

So I'm thinking, would it be possible to disable any kind of reading from the bookcase as an autonomous action? Alternately, I suppose a more balanced approach would be to disable it for everyone except heroes or whoever happens to be scholarly, or both. But I don't know how hard would that be

I only saw one read interaction that was autonomous. Give this a shot. Seems to clear up my bookshelves.

Thanks. I'll try it right away.

Heh. So I start the game and see the monk heading straight for the bookcase (probably was already headed there, I guess)... and then stands there looking dumb. Absolutely priceless :p

Thanks again.