Talk:Book scanning

List of book scanning initiatives
If no one minds I would like to start a list of book scanning projects. The digital libraries article and category is too diverse in scope and I am unable to find anywhere on Wikipedia a list specific to just book scanning. I'll start it here as a sub-section, and if it gets large enough, it could be spun off to a list-of article later. I thought about using a category, but the list may need some sort of descriptive explanation per entry, and categories tend to attract other things that are not entirely on topic, a list is more focused. -- Stbalbach 23:53, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

I've changed my mind as it appears to be a fairly large and complex project. In case anyone is interested here is a preliminary list:

Public Domain Books fully available.
 * Google Books
 * Windows Live Book Search
 * Internet Archive
 * Million Book Project
 * Digital Library of India
 * Distributed Proofreaders
 * European Library
 * Gallica (France)
 * International Children's Digital Library
 * Library of Congress Digital Library project
 * Making of America
 * National Center for Biotechnology Information
 * Rare Book Room
 * BookScanner.us - A Book Scanning service — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.244.213.227 (talk) 01:13, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

Commercial Books in copyright. Partial view and/or search may be possible.
 * Google Books
 * BiblioVault
 * A9.com, Amazon's "Search Inside" database.

-- Stbalbach 00:37, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Least expensive 11x17 ADF color scanner?
As of spring 2010, the lowest cost 11x17 color scanner with an ADF appears to be the Canon ImageRunner 2018i for US$2600. This is not really what I am seeking since it is attached to a monochrome workgroup printer. The scanner apparently can't be obtained separately.

But other than this one, 11x17 color scanners with an ADF soar to astronomical heights, making it very difficult to rapidly scan large piles of media on a hobbyist budget. I'm not willing to shell out some US$5000 for a Fujitsu FI-6670A high speed 11x17 duplex color scanner, and really $2600 for the 2018i is still quite high for a hobby project, but I suppose I could resell it afterwards.. DMahalko (talk) 01:50, 19 May 2010 (UTC)


 * March 2011 Update. Low cost (US $250-$500) "true 11x17" (no image stitching) color scanners with automatic document feeders:


 * Brother MFC-J6510DW (all-in-one scan/print 11x17)
 * Brother MFC-J6710DW (all-in-one scan/print 11x17)
 * Brother MFC-6490CW (all-in-one scan/print 11x17)
 * Brother MFC-6890CDW (all-in-one scan/print 11x17)
 * I have not yet found any evaluations of these for book/magazine scanning. DMahalko (talk) 01:38, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

These are book scanners too
Plustek produces book scanners that look mostly like ordinary flatbed scanners. See them here: Plustek OpticBook. I did not recognize them in the article. Nikolas Ojala (talk) 19:36, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

This article is missing basic information
It should describe, for example, common types of book scanners. I think there are at the following:
 * regular flatbeds, which have trouble scanning near the bend
 * portable pen/wand like mini scanners, that can be used to scan individual pages
 * flatbeds, similar to traditional scanners but with the scanning surface going up to the edges, allowing one to properly scan inside corner (near the bend). Plustek Opticbook series seems to be a major brand here, through I was unable to determine if has a better or worse reputation than any competitors (Microtek seems to be the second largest...?), nor was I even able to figure out what makes the cheapest models different from the most expensive ones (4800) to the cheapest ones (3600, 3800, 3900) outside the scanning speed. Price range of 200-2000$?
 * "book and document face-up scanners" have a different design, a bit like a standing lamp. If there's a proper name for this type of scanner, I haven't seen it used consistently. Price range seems to start at ~$100 (IPEVO Ziggi-HD High-Definition USB Document Camera) and go through ~300$ (piQx Xcanex Portable Book and Document Scanner) to ~700$ (Fujitsu PA03641-B005 Document Scanner / Scansnap SV600), through it's worth noting there seem to be "phone/camera holders" priced at even <100$ build using the same logic. They seem to have an improved workflow (you can just turn a page, no need to lift / rotate the book), but do not flatten the book, which produces distortions that need to be adjusted by software. That may be fine if your goal is OCR text, but for images, the distortions seem significant.They also seem the most portable/space-saving.
 * "v-shaped cradle" book scanners. Seem to be the best, as the pages are flattened, like in flatbed, workflow is easy (turn a page), and the book is least likely to be damaged, making it a must for anyone dealing with source material that has to be preserved. It is the most expensive, with the price tag starting at least at 5,000$.

Would anyone like to comment on that? Is it worth including in the article? It's OR, but the article has next to no footnotes anyway, sigh. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 02:28, 10 March 2015 (UTC)