In message of 26 Mar, Rod Neep <rkpn@british-genealogy.com> wrote: > In message <3lk041tdehup96mgsp5p6mg04qspfbagm4@4ax.com>, John > Addis-Smith <genl@addisgen.com> writes > >Another alternative would be the Plustek Optibook 3600 > >book scanner, which scans to the edge of the platen which can be > >placed up to the inner edge of a page. A little expensive at £233.83 > >(incl VAT) via the National Archivist web site: > > > >http://shop.nationalarchivist.com/acatalog/Products_Book_Scanner_37.html > >where there is a description and photograph. If the rest of the book > >was carefully supported and it was not too tightly bound, it should > >not be damaged . . . > > > >This would make a good addition to the SoG library if someone would > >sponsor it! > > All that is, is a flatbed scanner that will scan to the edge of the > platten area. > > It still requires considerable man handling of the book. Old and > valuable books will certainly be damaged by using it. Any books that are > already weak at the binding will be destroyed by using it. But won't the damage be less than the existing practices? > Having had the pleasure of scanning several hundred of the Society's > books over the last few weeks, I can assure everyone that use of such a > scanner would have resulted in many of those (already weak) books being > in extremely worse for the wear condition. > > An overhead book scanner is the only realistic option, as the book sits > in its normal relaxed position, and only the pages are turned, without > it having to be picked up and stressed for each page scan. Perhaps we need a very rich donor to present one of those to the society instead of allowing books to continue to be damaged on the photocopiers? -- Tim Powys-Lybbe tim@powys.org For a miscellany of bygones: http://powys.org