http://ascii.textfiles.com/archives/4099
Among other things: «scanning ephemera, which doesn’t usually have a
binding and which can fit in a flatbed scanner, is generally better for
people to be scanning than books and magazines. In general. If you want
to “help”, that’ll “help” more than anything. 600+ DPI. Use TIFF or
another lossless format. Look it up».
However, if you are in New York area, he may let you use his shiny
$25,000 book scanner (Internet Archive's Scribe) for those piles of
books and magazines. ;-)
Nemo