An extension of a theorem concerning an interesting Markov chain

Abstract

In a single-shelf library of N books we suppose that books are selected one at a time and returned to the kth position on the shelf before another selection is made. Books are moved to the right or left as necessary to vacate position k. The probability of selecting each book is assumed to be known, and the N! arrangements of the books are considered as states of an ergodic Markov chain for which we find the stationary distribution.