The art of e-book scanning has advanced considerably from the day one had to press a book down, one page at a time, on a flatbed scanner and hope that the optical character recognition software would not mangle it too badly. Google is scanning library books like crazy, and Project Gutenberg and Amazon are not far behind.
But for libraries and publishers who would prefer to keep the task of scanning books in-house, a company called Atiz is offering a non-damaging scan system in a number of different tiers, ranging in price from $1,600 to $13,000. This system involves resting a book in a V-shaped bed, then using a Canon SLR digital camera to take high-resolution images of the pages.
This scanner is particularly useful for libraries that wish to digitize their books but not make them widely available due to trade secrets, such as the Conjuring Arts Research Center mentioned in the article. It could also be useful for publishers wishing to make their back-catalog available without involving Google.
It is gratifying to see these options becoming available. For e-books to become more prevalent, they have to come from somewhere. Having multiple convenient options to scan paper books into e-books will increase that availability, especially if it can be done without damaging rare original copies.
Back catalogue? I’d love to see Baen get their older books by (in particular) Joanna Russ (and of course others) into their webscription store! I’d give them $15 a pop right now if they’d promise to do that–like eARC, except for books that have already been published.
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The art of e-book scanning has advanced considerably from the day one had to press a book down, one page at a time, on a flatbed scanner and hope that the optical character recognition software would not mangle it too badly. Google is scanning library books like crazy, and Project Gutenberg and Amazon are not far behind.
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Back catalogue? I’d love to see Baen get their older books by (in particular) Joanna Russ (and of course others) into their webscription store! I’d give them $15 a pop right now if they’d promise to do that–like eARC, except for books that have already been published.