Sciencemadness Discussion Board - Book Sanning Process a la Sauron

Book Sanning Process a la Sauron

Sauron - 8-6-2009 at 06:14

Polverone asked me to document and illustrate my setup and technique for scanning the Mellor series, So here it is.

You need a flatbed scanner snd s professional paper trimmer, a bix cutter or x-acto knife, and book(s) to be scanned. Plus a PC and appropriate software.

I dissect the books by first cutting the hinges and removing the boards, and then making an incision between chapters. The front matter is likewise trimmed from the first chapter and the index from the last of each volume.

The chapters are then divided into segments of 50 pages (25 sheets) or less, the maximum will vary with your trimmer's capacity.

These are then trp,,ed a few mm on inside edge to separate the sheets. Keep them in order.

Now you can scan chapter by chapter.

Sauron - 8-6-2009 at 06:18

Removing boards after cuttonges

Sauron - 8-6-2009 at 06:23

Separating chapters

[Edited on 8-6-2009 by Sauron]

bfesser - 8-6-2009 at 06:38

What do you do with the physical copy when you're done? Seems like an awful waste.

Magpie - 8-6-2009 at 07:44

Thanks for posting this procedure. I had no idea how it was done.

Assuming you are going to make your Mellor set available to the forum library, I want to thank you for this generous donation of your time, and your books.

I also want to take this opportunity to thank all the others who have contributed to the wonderful library of this forum. Where else could one find all these rare texts at his fingertips.

hissingnoise - 8-6-2009 at 07:45

Laborious too. . .Is there no nondestructive method for this?
A digital camera with a sharp lens and heavy plate glass to flatten pages, perhaps!

Sauron - 8-6-2009 at 08:10

I have never found a really satisfactory way of scanning books without dissecting them.

I agree that it is a shame to destroy a good book, but I can no longer read hard copy, I can manage well on screen copy. So I have no choice.

Almost the complete set is now posted in New Boons - Inorganic and Polverone will place them in forum library soon.

Let's not forget that Volumes II and VIII, the S chapter and the Cr chapter were provided years ago by S.C.Wack not me.

Someone asked about the fate of the loose scanned pages. They are stored in proper order in seversal large boxes, at least till I am sure I did not leave anything out.

[Edited on 8-6-2009 by Sauron]

Polverone - 8-6-2009 at 08:40

Thanks for posting this, Sauron.

I have been asking Sauron to document the scanning process he uses for a while. If you don't pay attention to the new inorganic chemistry books thread in References, you may not realize just how much scanning he has done lately. He's working on completing the digitization of Mellor that S.C. Wack launched. He has already scanned thousands of pages.

I know that it can be very difficult to get good page images from a bound book, especially a thick one. Sauron has simply cut off the bindings. It's a way to maintain good scanning speed and image quality without paying for exotic scanning hardware.

woelen - 8-6-2009 at 12:10

Sauron, indeed that looks rather destructive for the books. But I also want to thank you very much for this great effort and the donation of the books to the sciencemadness community. I'm really looking forward to all the scanned material. I already habe the material from SC Wack and I love it, and I really am looking forward to the other books!

Sauron - 8-6-2009 at 16:51

I posted already:

Everything except: Fe, Co; Te, Mo, W; Ni, Pd, Os, Ir, Rb, Ru.; Pt; H and O. These are Volumes I, XI except for Cr. the last Cha[ter of XII I am scanning now, XIII, XIV, XV, and XVI

I have spent $500 on the sacrificed books. Thr 8 supplements only cover the halogens and alkali metals, N, P and B. They cost $125 each so I will buy them slowly and scan them desultorily.

Volumes XI and XIII cost as much at the other 14 main volumes combined.

(n between I have three volumes of Reid's series on organosulfur chemistry to scan, Vols 2-4, Nicodem already posted Vol 1.

[Edited on 9-6-2009 by Sauron]

Hydragyrum - 9-6-2009 at 06:11

Quote: Originally posted by Sauron

I have spent $500 on the sacrificed books.

Wow, that's a lot of money! Your selflessness is to be commended, but perhaps a fund should be set up for purchasing material for scanning, considering the wide benefit the scans have for those here?

JohnWW - 9-6-2009 at 13:46

Rather than dismantle the (brittle) books, and then have to get a professional bookbinder to put them back together again, the best way to go, in order to overcome the slowness of flatbed scanners (especially when producing higher-quality 600+dpi scans), would probably be to use an overhead digital camera, mounted on some sort of metal jointed arm like a movable overhead desk light, with the open books under a heavy pane of glass of appropriate size to flatten the pages, and a round or triangular piece of wood or something underneath the spine.

At least an 8 megapixel camera would be needed. But this has the drawback of probably producing only large full-color 24- or 36-bit JPG image files, which also include the background paper color unless the contrast can be greatly increased, whereas for most scientific textbook pages only 1-bit monochrome or 8-bit grayscale images are necessary. Some digital cameras may be capable of being set to take only 8-bit grayscale images, though. Also, the images may have to be trimmed to the size of the pages. 1-bit monochrome files are most efficiently saved as TIF or PCX files.

Earlier this year, I posted on another thread about a program which can be used to automatically "level out" the pages of an open book photographed by a digital camera.

Dr.3vil - 9-6-2009 at 14:26

a non-destructive book scanner made from trash.

http://hackaday.com/2009/04/20/high-speed-book-scanner-from-...

http://www.instructables.com/id/DIY-High-Speed-Book-Scanner-...

Hydragyrum - 9-6-2009 at 15:53

Quote: Originally posted by JohnWW

At least an 8 megapixel camera would be needed. But this has the drawback of probably producing only large full-color 24- or 36-bit JPG image files, which also include the background paper color unless the contrast can be greatly increased, whereas for most scientific textbook pages only 1-bit monochrome or 8-bit grayscale images are necessary. Some digital cameras may be capable of being set to take only 8-bit grayscale images, though. Also, the images may have to be trimmed to the size of the pages. 1-bit monochrome files are most efficiently saved as TIF or PCX files.

I believe photoshop can batch process image files with regards to: colour balance, contrast, grayscale, and size - as well as any other variable the program is capable of altering.

Sauron - 9-6-2009 at 22:06

I scan in B&W 600 dpi in order to avail myself of JBIG2 compression.

Speaking as someone who has scanned quite a few books prior to the present 25,000 page exercise, none of the alternatives appeal to me at all.

JohnWW, I am not having the pages rebound as the hardcopy is of no further use to me. Period.

Praise for seleflessness is ill placed as I am doing this for MYSELF and having done that, giving the files to the forum costs me zero extra, other than upload time. I am not even hosting them, Polverone is. So much for generosity.

$500 is not big money to me, and already I have gotten numerous bits or information I deem of great value to my work, so it is money well spent and entirely justified. I am a little more dubious about the $1000 for the 8 supplements, so I will take that slow over the course of a year or so. Priority for me is the P supplemeent.

Sorry to disillusion about what a great fount of altruism I am, but I amfter all am Sauron.

Hydragyrum - 9-6-2009 at 23:25

Not a problem, I'll get over my disillusionment

And by the way, even if your motivation is 100% selfish (in terms of doing it for yourself) as you say it is, the fact that you are passing on the files to this site is still worthy of praise - I hope you can handle it, because you still deserve it!

Sauron - 10-6-2009 at 00:59

Just try not to polish my reputation as a curmudgeon. please.