4 ms·

This system doesn't allow for going paper-free on books, right? Unless you rip the pages individually?

by fastfinner 15y ago

elliottcable 15y ago
eBooks?
- fastfinner 15y ago
  I meant on my existing books. Most not available as e-books (proprietary study materials, certificate course materials, books in other languages, ...).
mcav 15y ago
Right. A community exists for people who make their own book scanners: http://www.diybookscanner.org/ http://www.diybookscanner.org/ , but book scanning is really quite tedious and hardly worth it unless you really need one book a lot. There were previous discussions about this on HN in which the consensus was that book scanning wasn't really feasible for more than a book or two due to time.
- fastfinner 15y ago
  ic, thanks. I hope the day when every book can be purchased in electronic form comes soon!
- reitzensteinm 15y ago
  Surely it would be a lot easier if you were willing to destroy the book in the process? You'd just need a scanner that will feed pages through like a printer, and to merge the page numbers if it's a one sided scanner. The scanners on that page are ridiculously cool.
stevelosh 15y ago
Correct. As mcav mentioned scanning books is very complicated -- way more effort than I'm willing to spend. And even if I could, I don't think I would. I like the feel of books in my hands.
- fastfinner 15y ago
  I also like the feel of books and the easy way to mark stuff with a pencil. What I hate, though, is the weight of the books and the hassle to store them, to transport them on a daily basis (student), move them from city to city with airline luggage limits. Erases all the love I had for the convenience when reading.
noonespecial 15y ago
The place I used to work had a hydraulic paper sheer that could cut a ream straight in half. I've also got the above mentioned Fujitsu Scansnap. I started out by chopping the spines off those old textbooks I'd been lugging around and feeding them to the scanner. It was so easy, I started going by the used book store and grabbing handfuls of 50 cent curiosities. It only took about 10 minutes to scan a book this way. The downside is that the book is destroyed. Think of it as a religious experience. The book can live on forever in the digital realm but it must sacrifice it's paper form to do so!
markkanof 15y ago
This system doesn't, but you could do something like Google did to scan books for Google Books. In the book "In The Plex" Steven Levy describes the process that they developed. They lay the book flat on a table and have two cameras mounted above it at angles. They snap a picture, turn the page, snap another picture, etc. Then they have software which corrects for the curvature of the page. Seemed pretty clever to me. It's certainly not as fast as cutting off the binding and putting it through a sheetfed scanner, but it's reasonably fast and doesn't destroy the book.

This system doesn't allow for going paper-free on books, right? Unless you rip the pages individually?

elliottcable 15y ago

eBooks?

fastfinner 15y ago
I meant on my existing books. Most not available as e-books (proprietary study materials, certificate course materials, books in other languages, ...).

mcav 15y ago

Right. A community exists for people who make their own book scanners: http://www.diybookscanner.org/ http://www.diybookscanner.org/ , but book scanning is really quite tedious and hardly worth it unless you really need one book a lot. There were previous discussions about this on HN in which the consensus was that book scanning wasn't really feasible for more than a book or two due to time.

fastfinner 15y ago
ic, thanks. I hope the day when every book can be purchased in electronic form comes soon!
reitzensteinm 15y ago
Surely it would be a lot easier if you were willing to destroy the book in the process? You'd just need a scanner that will feed pages through like a printer, and to merge the page numbers if it's a one sided scanner. The scanners on that page are ridiculously cool.

stevelosh 15y ago

Correct. As mcav mentioned scanning books is very complicated -- way more effort than I'm willing to spend. And even if I could, I don't think I would. I like the feel of books in my hands.

fastfinner 15y ago
I also like the feel of books and the easy way to mark stuff with a pencil. What I hate, though, is the weight of the books and the hassle to store them, to transport them on a daily basis (student), move them from city to city with airline luggage limits. Erases all the love I had for the convenience when reading.

noonespecial 15y ago

The place I used to work had a hydraulic paper sheer that could cut a ream straight in half. I've also got the above mentioned Fujitsu Scansnap. I started out by chopping the spines off those old textbooks I'd been lugging around and feeding them to the scanner. It was so easy, I started going by the used book store and grabbing handfuls of 50 cent curiosities. It only took about 10 minutes to scan a book this way. The downside is that the book is destroyed. Think of it as a religious experience. The book can live on forever in the digital realm but it must sacrifice it's paper form to do so!

markkanof 15y ago

This system doesn't, but you could do something like Google did to scan books for Google Books. In the book "In The Plex" Steven Levy describes the process that they developed. They lay the book flat on a table and have two cameras mounted above it at angles. They snap a picture, turn the page, snap another picture, etc. Then they have software which corrects for the curvature of the page. Seemed pretty clever to me. It's certainly not as fast as cutting off the binding and putting it through a sheetfed scanner, but it's reasonably fast and doesn't destroy the book.