A thoughtful and well-informed message follows.

-------- Messaggio Originale -------- Oggetto: Re: [Fwd: [Commons-l] Digitisation equipment] Data: Thu, 27 Aug 2009 23:26:23 +0200 Da: Andrea Zanni A: nemowiki, commons-l@lists.wikimedia.org Referenze: 4A969A28.30705@gmail.com

Dear all, I'm Aubrey, a wikisource admin just come back from IFLA (http://www.ifla.com), in Milan. I'm not an expert, but I'm pretty into "digital libraries" (I'm attending a master), and I happens I have some flyers of books scanners, so I will give you some url if you don't mind.

But first some a question: you need a book scanner for mass digitization (tonnes of books, not rare and not fragile), or a special scanner for special items? The two things are different extremes of the digitization problems, the various machines fit in the continuum between the two.

In general, all scanners are more or less automated, but they always need an operator. all of them have some problems with thick pages. Most of them have included the software, for metadata, image cropping, OCR and whatever you want.

* http://www.nica.biz **Kirtas III is a wonderful machine, (I've seen it at work, it's pretty amazing ;-)) 2500/pages pages per hour, 400 dpi, clever and gentle way to turn the page, completely automated. Around 100.000 euros (!!)

* http://www.kirtascom http://www.kirtascom/ *Kabis III, similar to Kirtas III. **SkyView, ideal for books witk fooldouts, newspapers, maps, posters, ... Max imaging area 35" x 25"

* http://www.atiz.com **Bookdrive, manual turning of the page, in 3 models: Mini, DIY, Pro. Is still expensive (around 80.000), and I don't know if the software and the cameras are included.

* ScanRobot SR301 (Treventus mechatronics (Vienna)) 2500 pages per hour (theoretical), 700-1900 p/h (practical), 300ppi Angle of "openness" of the book: from 60 to 100 degrees, (this was pretty cool too. I don't remeber the price, around 80.000 euro I think)

As you can see I put more information of the best 2 scanners I've seen in these days, they were expensive but, as far as I know, you can rent them for some projects (6 months or so).

I do not know any of these producers, but if you need more information, I still have some technical paper here with me.

Hope to be helpful

Aubrey