BOOK SCANNING OVERVIEW
Although printed books are still as popular as ever, there is increasing need to make books available electronically, for the following reasons, amongst others.
• To ease education
• To prevent damage to original documents
• To make literature available to more readers at once
Capturing electronic images of books is more complicated than capturing single sheets of paper because of the binding and resulting ‘curved’ shape.
Although our brains can read the curved shape, computers may have trouble. The answer is either to ensure that the image is flat or using software to make it appear flat.
Some Archivists are not happy with use of digitally enhanced images, particularly with historic documents so preference is for systems that capture clear, flat images directly.
If the images are good then computers can use OCR (Optical Character Recognition) software to produce searchable text.
Manufacturers of Book Scanners have used different approaches in order to produce good images.
The actual Capture device may be a Digital Camera or Scanner. If a Scanner, it may require close contact with the book or scan from a distance, perhaps in sections. The book may be held in a central position in a ‘cradle’ and the camera or scanner may remain central or move in order to build the complete image in the computers memory.
One small (A4) Scanner allows you to hang the book over one edge of the glass platen in order to avoid spine curvature distortion. It works quite well but you can lose up to 6mm from the centre of the book that may cause a problem.
Another system uses a ‘V’ shaped glass platen on a ‘V’ shaped book cradle to support the book and then 2 Digital Cameras to capture each (opposite) side of the book. See the image on the right.
RESOLUTION
Particularly now with low-cost Digital Cameras, people are considering using them as a lower cost solution.
As well as deciding how you will keep the pages flat (be aware glass platens can produce reflections), you will need to ensure that all images have at least the equivalent of 200dpi or preferably 300dpi if OCR is to be used.
We mentioned earlier about OCR and the need for ‘flat’ images but with historic books, where the images are purely for reading by human eyes, it is quite acceptable to produce images like this.
In summary, a good Book-Scanner should be capable of capturing ‘flat’ images from books up to A3 or even A2 in size in B&W, Greyscale and 24-bit Colour.
The images should be saved as uncompressed TIFF for archival purposes (GroupIV TIFF OK if only Bitonal) but able to be saved as JPEG and/or PDF for Web and easy Distribution.
Adobe Acrobat (PDF) format is ideal for books, as pages can be combined into one file that represents a book or volume (e-book).
TYPES OF BOOKS
Laboratory Notebooks, ‘Non-Fiction’ Books, Novels, Burial Records, Grave Registers, Birth Registers, Death Registers, Genealogical Records, Old Accounting Ledgers etc.
Note that, as time passes, books will be created digitally and should not need to be scanned. This means that only ‘hand-written’ books or ‘old’ printed books are likely to need scanning in the future.
Please feel free to make your enquiry below.