Yes! Chemistry for Dullards sounds like just the thing! Let's have a look!

Put the florbo-narbalate on the SILVER PLATE.  The SILVER plate.  Not the CERAMIC PLATE that you are ALREADY USING.  Not the FLOOR.

Now put out THREE thaums of spallation mana over TWELVE seconds.  You can tell if you are doing this correctly if the florbo-narbalate LIQUEFIES.  If instead it EXPLODES then that was not SPALLATION MANA it was VIBRATORY MANA and you need to BACK UP and TRY AGAIN and possibly GIVE UP ON CHEMISTRY.

Is there anything even remotely resembling a periodic table of the elements anywhere in this book?

Or failing that, does it seem like Opalyn could painstakingly go through all of this drivel and figure out some things?

She's had a lifelong... not fantasy exactly, but recurring daydream about being sent to prison and only having a few books to look at and really squeezing everything she could possibly get out of those books. If this entire isekai experience is leading up to a full realization of that particular recurring daydream, she has other daydreams she would like to be living instead.

Flipping through doesn't show anything that leaps out as resembling a periodic table of Earth elements.  However there will often appear a square or a cube about which the author's relentlessly fed-up voice instructs the reader to remember what THIS quadrant OBVIOUSLY indicates along axes 2, 8; or contrasting the +/-/- subcube to the -/+/- subcube along axes 3, 7, 2 if you're otherwise already in +/-/-/+ on 1, 4, 8, 9.

All right. She'll take this one with her, in case nothing better comes along, and then she'll scan this shelf in search of anything on the following subjects:

- chemistry basics
- physics basics
- wizardry primer
- types of magic (e.g. fire, force, falash, ...)
- engineering basics? ideally comparing mundane vs. magical construction options?
- anything about basic biology / medicine

She also wants to know about history and politics but she thinks she's already well down a different path; that'll be a subsequent library search.

She's at the point where she can start to see assorted textbooks on the RIGHT bookcase, yes.  Remedial Wizardry is one promising-sounding title, as is The First Layer of Item Engineering.  There isn't anything visible about biology or medicine, and a lot of the school materials will prove to be really appallingly written if she tries to look inside.

Oooh ooh. What's Remedial Wizardry like?

And while Item Engineering doesn't really sound quite right, she'll take a quick glance at that too.

Remedial Wizardry is for kids trying to go into their first year of wizardry who are missing some of the common prerequisites about that!  It's not incredibly well-written and still assumes the reader is coming in knowing way more than Opalyn actually knows but she may nonetheless want to keep this one.

Item Engineering assumes you already know what a bunch of basic terms and instructions mean--there is nothing about how you could engage in any such act as "impart spin 3/2 to your mana" literally at all--but it is then very meticulous about explaining all of the interactions between all of the kinds of forces that it is telling you to use.

Okay! These are both keepers!

It's not like she's going to find something called So You've Been Isekaied to Eldrida as a Powerful Sorceress.

Right? She doesn't find anything like that?

If not, she'll continue down to the right.

That would've probably been in the fiction section, yes.

Possibly her choice to pick up and take those three books has had some sort of effect on her next set of choices!  LEFT is more miscellaneous textbooks but RIGHT is now a treasury of remedial and introductory materials.

Opalyn feels like this book is calling her out personally! She takes it off the shelf and looks through it. How exactly is she messing up spellcraft? Or has her sorcery so far even counted as spellcraft?

The author would probably have Opalyn killed on sight.

That's harsh! Why?

The author seems to feel that many people whom society has foolishly recognized as adequate are in fact NOT ADEQUATE and should be LOCKED IN A SMALL ROOM whose LOCK requires AT LEAST BARELY ADEQUATE USE OF PRECISE WIZARDRY to let them out again.

...the author is willing to help on this project, to be clear.  It describes common spells and what is probably going wrong when you try to cast them SO POORLY and the exercises you should do to get better and how you will be able to tell when you are then casting the spell CORRECTLY.

Excellent.

Opalyn is excited to become the kind of spellcaster who would not be killed on sight by this author!

This seems like an extremely good bookcase, and Opalyn is really very ready to be back in her room reading rather than on her feet after an overly exciting and draining day.

She gathers up as many more books as she thinks she can probably afford while leaving some credits for door-locking, and heads back to the front desk.

The bookcases she previously passed are now showing different books on her return trip!  Possibly skewed a bit by her previous choices!  For example, the bookcase that was previously full of technical material possibly has more titles that look more like technical textbooks.

Opalyn is somewhat dismayed/intrigued that this technology exists in this universe and walks briskly past that book! These bookshelves are a little too responsive to her interest and she worries that they might also show this book to other people who might then tickle her telekinetically and she feels very confused about that possibility!

The spatially normal library entrance looks much the same as when she left it!

The number of books that Opalyn is proposing to take out will get a raised eyebrow; that'll burn through her Farm credit reserves relatively quickly, if she has all of them out at once for days on end.  She'd need to recharge in eight days rather than twelve.

She'll take all of them for now on the theory that she'll likely return half of them in a day or two. She can't immediately tell which ones are winners and which are losers.

From here, she'll swing through the refectory. She'll grab some food that looks easy to transport one-handed -- her other arm is full of books -- and attempt to abscond to her room with her goodies.

The refectory is much fuller than it was before, and the many inhabitants are talking (loudly enough to be heard over the background roar) with visibly alarmed looks on their faces.

The Prince of the Farm is dead.

Opalyn is tired and just wants to read her books and eat her food and then sleep, and does not want to have to engage in a conversation in which she appears to be surprised by this news.

(And despite her cathartic experience charging the force generator, she maybe still feels a little bit guilty about her role in his death.)

Can she manage to move through the refectory without attracting any attention?

Opalyn can try, but the number of books she is carrying do flagrantly say 'unfamiliar high-ranking person'.

"Were you there?  Did you see it?  Is it true the Dread Emperor himself killed everyone who didn't get out in time?  You look like a Duchess, do you have any idea what happens to the rest of us if the Grand Dukes aren't charging lightlines and aren't holding your unlock tokens over you?"

Opalyn wants nothing to do with any of these questions!

Though, she does wonder... why wouldn't the Grand Dukes be charging lightlines anymore?

Oh... is it because they don't dare run charging sessions of high ranking inmates without a Prince there to oversee the operation?

"I'm not sure what's going to happen, either!" blurts Opalyn truthfully.

Can she sidle out of this conversation and make for the door?

They're not going to physically stop her, so yes, she can get away with that.  Maybe even some food too, if she's willing to slow down enough to grab it with her non-booked hand?

Yes! She's hungry! She wants the food!