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From: BillGill <tonisdad215@gmail.com>
Newsgroups: sci.electronics.design
Subject: Re: hobby electronics
Date: Fri, 5 Jul 2024 08:46:26 -0500
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On 7/4/2024 10:05 AM, Don Y wrote:
> On 7/4/2024 6:24 AM, BillGill wrote:
>> On 7/3/2024 8:57 AM, Don Y wrote:
>>> Do you have a pointer to that information (looking for tips that
>>> I may not have discovered as I've been digitizing my dead trees)?
>>
>> Sorry about that last post.  I have been having trouble
>> with my email and everything has been messed up.
>>
>> Have you found https://diybookscanner.org/?
> 
> No -- but, thanks, I will have a look.
> 
>> On their Forum
>> there are probably posted thousands of things about all
>> aspects of book scanning.  If you search there you can get
>> answers to almost any question you might have.
> 
> A quick glance seems to suggest they do "non-destructive"
> scanning.  I've opted to treat most (95%?) of my titles
> as "disposable" -- cut off the binding, feed pages through
> scanner, bundle resulting TIFFs in a PDF container, recycle
> scanned paper.  Lather, rinse, repeat.
> 
> It seems like trying to preserve the book would greatly
> complicate the effort (?) and time required (??).  And, if
> the goal is to be rid of the paper, then I don't see the
> real advantage of trying to keep the book intact...
> 
> What do you do with YOUR books after scanning them?
> Are you scanning with the goal of creating searchable
> documents?  Or, of getting rid of "paper"?
> 
> How many titles are you handling?  Do YOU own them?
> 
I have a large paper library.  I am also getting old.
I may have to go into some sort of assisted living
when I can't go on living by myself.  When I do I will
not be able to take my library with me.  So I have
been building a digital library.  Most books that I have
are available in digital format.  But I realized that many
of the older books are not available.  They are mainly fiction,
mysteries, SF, even a few romances.  And mostly from
the time when books were mostly a one time event.  A
few old time authors, such as Agatha Christie, are still
in print and available as print or digital, but many
are not.  So I decided to digitize those books for myself.
While most of them are in copyright, I have no idea how
to get permission.  I suspect that is why many of them are
not in digital format.  So I have been digitizing them for
my own use.  I will not distribute them in any way.  They
are strictly for my own use.  If any of them show up in
digital format I will buy that edition.

So I have been doing non-destructive scanning.  This is a
rather long process, since I am creating epub formatted books
epub is a format based on HTML so that it can be automatically
reformatted to fit on any screen.  But that means extra
work.  It takes anyplace for 3 days to a week, depending on
the size and quality of the book.  First I scan it using
my DIY scanner.  This involves taking a photo of each page,
then converting the photos to text, using Optical Character
Recognition (OCR) software.  After that is the slow part.
I insert the text into a word processor and proof it to
correct all the many errors the OCR makes in the process.
How many errors depends partly on the quality of the source.
Then it is fairly simple to convert it to the epub format,
or into the AZW3 format that can be read by kindle.

Bill