As AI tech companies increasingly buy and destroy books to feed to their AI models, Anna's Archive is calling for volunteers to help preserve them for the public record.

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[–] 6 points 2 months ago (5 children)

Anyone know any good book scanners was looking around and not sure what i should get.

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  • [–] 6 points 2 months ago

    Ages ago I had mimicked the "overhead scanner" with a mounted digital camera, but now I'd go with a mounted smartphone + light bars + bluetooth photo trigger. Scrolling through Bezos' was pretty depressing in terms of cost/quality and even a $150 device seemed like a repurposed webcam, with a sole non-free confirmed buyer saying it died after 3 months while freebies praise it lol. As long as you don't scan drawings/designs/comic books - just set lights evenly and that'd be enough, and even moreso if you OCR it and turn a scan into an e-book where visual fidelity stops to matter.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 months ago (1 child)

    I don't know about buying, but the ones I have seen basically hold the book open at a 45 degreeish angle, to not damage the spine. Then you press the pages with a 45 degree set of glass plates. The actual "scan" is a camera of some kind that slodes back.and forth between the two halves on a mount.

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