I agree with Robert on the refinishing-I like to sand paint, etc off wood items, rather than using a chemical stripper-I have two vibrating sanders and several small sanding attachments for the Dremel sander-I’d sand it to bare wood, then stain-or maybe just seal it with the poly stuff-good luck...
xshub is not interested in investing in a sander, bc this isn’t likely to be something we take up in our retirement, so i am sticking with the hand method. The cheapest sander i saw was $40 or so, and bc the bookshelf was free from the street, i’d like to keep the cost of materials low! we carted it home with the back of my Highlander ajar bc it would have entailed removing the carseat to get the second row down to fit it in properly and that sucker was far too difficult to get in there right to mess with taking it out for this purpose. so we drove slowly and i thought ok, if it crashed out of the back onto the highwaY, it WAS free!