Comments on: Convert your own books: a new resource

By: Bill McHale

Bill McHale — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 15:04:09 +0000

The flip side in all of this is how silly DRM is for books. Sure plenty of people could rip CDs to get mp3s… but at least in the case of CD’s it was at least theoretically possible to put DRM on the media. In contrast, there is no way DRM could ever be effectively put on a paper book.

By: Steve Jordan

Steve Jordan — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 20:07:21 +0000

You’re right: I wouldn’t want to do all of my library, either… probably just a few choice books. But it would be easy enough to use on a newly-purchased book.

I think the idea behind scanning the pages is to run them through an (automated) OCR system… at least, it’s a viable option if the cameras you use provide a high-enough resolution image. That way, you can convert it to whatever format you choose… you’ll have a truly digitized document, and you won’t need the DX or any PDF-optimized reader at all.

Of course, the idea that it might not be cost-effective isn’t really the point. The point is that it’s a way to legally digitize your books.

By: Greg M.

Greg M. — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 17:50:23 +0000

I lot of thing come to mind after watching the demo video. First, you have to turn each page then replace the book ripper on top of the book. At the high end estimate of 1000 pages per hour it would 35 hours to scan a 100 book library assuming an average of 350 pages per book. At 1000 books it would be 350 hours. But my personal book library is closer to 3000 books so that would be at least 1050 hours, or about 26 weeks if I worked at it on standard business day. That is not going to happen. So maybe I should just pick and choose my favorite 100 books to scan.

Second and more important: Where can these scanned books be read? A book scanned into a PDF is actually less useful than the original book. Sure, I could read it on my MacBook Pro, but that isn’t how I read ebooks. I know what ever I could do to I scanned books the results would be next to impossible to read on a Kindle 1 or 2 without a lot of proofing, though it might be OK on the DX. The Sony isn’t magic and wouldn’t do much better with scanned books either.

So to read the scanned books I’d need to spend $500 for the DX. Total cost per book with $250 for the book ripper comes to $7.50 for 100 books excluding labor. Is that such a good deal?

Assuming $10.00 per book to buy, I would save only $250. Or, would I work 35 hours for $250, or $7.14 per hour, less than minimum wage in Washington state? I don’t think it is worth it. Would you work for that wage?

By: Steve Jordan

Steve Jordan — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 16:19:25 +0000

Now that might be the most practical and easily-used book scanner I’ve ever seen. And as someone who would love to be able to easily digitize his book collection, it looks like the first device I may actually build.