
Gizmodo & i4U have posts about a $35k book scanner, it seems really neat and eventually they will come down in price – but I have an old collection of out of print books I want to scan in (now). I’m guessing I’m not alone, so we’ll likely see a few DIY versions sprouting up soon, perhaps one with a LEGO page turner (like this old project) Link.










$240 (MSRP) Plustek Book Scanner
Offers to-edge scanning for scanning books in with ease. The only drawbacks.. Not the best scanner for picture-perfect photo scanning.
The company claims 250 pages an hour scanning. I easily scan 200 pages in an hour while watching a movie. Set your scanning boundaries put in page one, press the button on the scanner. No need to sit at the computer during the whole process.
A low-tech version of this idea uses a sheet feeder scanner and an industrial paper scissor trimmer (a gigantic machine that uses a knife blade to slice the binding right off the book).
You take the book down to the local print shop, get the binding cut off and the pages squared up, and then run the pages in short stacks through the sheet-fed scanner and then do something clever to collate the pages.
Yes, you have to destroy a copy of the book in the process. It is possible to re-bind the book, poorly, but not really.
Just so readers know the name of this machine. It’s called Atiz BookDrive. Visit http://www.atiz.com to see in more details how it is unique.
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