[extropy-chat] finding old (and new) sf

[Joseph Bloch]

Outstanding. Come the fall, I might just get one and start converting my 
ginormous collection of paperbacks to digital.

One word of caution to those who might be interested in doing the same; 
with the recent SCOTUS rulings about copyright and such, it might be 
worthwhile to retain some sort of proof of right to own such digital 
copies.

I will probably be keeping the covers in a box, against the day the 
Copyright Enforcers come to my door.

Joseph

David Lubkin wrote:

> Joseph Bloch wrote:
>
>> Oooh... that sounds nice. How's it work on paperback books?
>>
>> I'm imagining you dismember the books into single pages and feed it in.
>
>
> I haven't tried it on paperbacks yet, but I don't expect they'd 
> present a problem.
>
> Some considerations for this or any ADF scanner without a flatbed --
>
> If the document feeder isn't going to be able to separate the pages 
> because of their weight, or because they are slightly crumpled, or 
> because they stick together (from humidity or staple holes), you have 
> to feed the sheets one at a time. With a little practice, you can 
> place each sheet at just the right time in the cycle to be included in 
> the current pdf file. In Acrobat, you can trivially Create Document 
> from Multiple Files to aggregate however many pdf files you ended up 
> with.
>
> I've found that for newspaper clippings to appear as black on white, 
> one needs to adjust the brightness and contrast, because of the 
> non-whiteness of the paper. My guess is that a paperback would require 
> the same adjustment, for the same reason.
>
> For any scanner, if you want the text recognized instead of just 
> scanned as an image, you'll need to play with the settings to get the 
> best results, allow a lot of time for the OCR phase, and be prepared 
> to check and correct the text. (I don't bother with OCR for 95% of 
> what I scan.)
>
> I've also started scanning journals and magazines. Removing staples or 
> perfect binding is annoying. I looked into a paper cutter that could 
> handle a few hundred sheets at a time. They're rather expensive. But 
> my local OfficeMax will cut a stack of 500 sheets for a dollar, and I 
> can just drop off a box of journals for them to cut.
>
> Before scanning periodicals, check if you can already get them 
> on-line. Some magazines (like The Economist) and professional 
> associations (like ACM) provide a free, complete, pdf archive on their 
> web sites for subscribers.
>
> For oversized scanning, like a full sheet from a newspaper, you'll 
> want to use software that can stitch together the pieces into one image.
>
>
> -- David Lubkin.
>
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