Some research libraries in Stockholm (at archives and museums) have put up book scanners that the public can use. They have the same function as a public copier, but you get your copies on a USB stick rather than on paper.
This opens an interesting opportunity for Wikisource and similar volunteer book scanning projects. Instead of buying expensive equipment, experimenting with cameras and lighting, or building your own scanner, you can just visit such a library. I guess you can even bring your own book and scan it there, instead of just using the library's books. (Of course you still need to consider copyright. That goes without saying.)
Wikimedia Sverige, the Swedish chapter of the WMF, started a wiki page to document some experience from this kind of use, in Swedish of course, https://se.wikimedia.org/wiki/Allm%C3%A4nhetens_bokscanner
Here is an example of a book that was scanned this way, http://runeberg.org/nordmuseet/1897/0001.html (Ironically, it is the annual report for 1897 of the museum where it was scanned. They have the scanner standing in their own library, but they have not scanned their own reports.)
Are you familiar with anyting similar? Any other pages that we should link to?
Scan quality is excellent.
Yes, is a very promising way - my suggestion is, to get always scans in TIFF (if possible; they are large but USB are large too ...), tro transform them into an image-only pdf (which is the simpler tool to do this?) and to load a copy into Internet Archive specifyng both the library where the book has been scanned AND the wikisource contribution in scansion/merging TIFFs/uploading into IA.
Then the excellent OCR -> divu produced by IA can be downloaded and uploaded into Commons. A good way to share anything, IMHO.
In the meantime: IA produces too an extremely interesting ABBYY.gz output; it's a xml where a incredible set of interesting data is recorded for any scanned character. Here an example for a random character of a random IA book:
<charParams l="1356" t="680" r="1544" b="884" wordStart="false" wordFromDictionary="true" wordNormal="true" wordNumeric="false" wordIdentifier="false" charConfidence="25" serifProbability="100" wordPenalty="0" meanStrokeWidth="347">G</charParams>
Something to explore deeply IMHO; I presume that less than 1% of usable ABBYY scan data are wrapped into djvu as OCR layer.
Alex
2013/6/13 Lars Aronsson lars@aronsson.se
Some research libraries in Stockholm (at archives and museums) have put up book scanners that the public can use. They have the same function as a public copier, but you get your copies on a USB stick rather than on paper.
This opens an interesting opportunity for Wikisource and similar volunteer book scanning projects. Instead of buying expensive equipment, experimenting with cameras and lighting, or building your own scanner, you can just visit such a library. I guess you can even bring your own book and scan it there, instead of just using the library's books. (Of course you still need to consider copyright. That goes without saying.)
Wikimedia Sverige, the Swedish chapter of the WMF, started a wiki page to document some experience from this kind of use, in Swedish of course, https://se.wikimedia.org/wiki/**Allm%C3%A4nhetens_bokscannerhttps://se.wikimedia.org/wiki/Allm%C3%A4nhetens_bokscanner
Here is an example of a book that was scanned this way, http://runeberg.org/**nordmuseet/1897/0001.htmlhttp://runeberg.org/nordmuseet/1897/0001.html (Ironically, it is the annual report for 1897 of the museum where it was scanned. They have the scanner standing in their own library, but they have not scanned their own reports.)
Are you familiar with anyting similar? Any other pages that we should link to?
-- Lars Aronsson (lars@aronsson.se)
Wikimedia Sverige - stöd fri kunskap - http://wikimedia.se/
Project Runeberg - free Nordic literature - http://runeberg.org/
______________________________**_________________ Wikisource-l mailing list Wikisource-l@lists.wikimedia.**org Wikisource-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/**mailman/listinfo/wikisource-lhttps://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikisource-l
Lars Aronsson, 13/06/2013 15:39:
Some research libraries in Stockholm (at archives and museums) have put up book scanners that the public can use. They have the same function as a public copier, but you get your copies on a USB stick rather than on paper.
Nice, are they all scanners like this? https://se.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fil:Allm%C3%A4nhetens_bokscanner_Vitterhetsakademiens_bibliotek_1.JPG
The only thing I know about is that some (few) libraries let you use copiers of this sort to scan books and have them on USB drive, email or HTTP/FTP server: http://usa.kyoceradocumentsolutions.com/americas/jsp/Kyocera/productdetails.jsp?pid=20998 In theory two separate C-levels of my university promised me to make one or more available to students using a fraction of the 6-figures budget for copiers, but you can't imagine the internal fights there are in my universities around copiers.
Nemo
Since years there are lots of FREE to use (Zeutschel) scanners in most German academic libraries.
Klaus Graf
2013/6/13 Federico Leva (Nemo) nemowiki@gmail.com:
Lars Aronsson, 13/06/2013 15:39:
Some research libraries in Stockholm (at archives and museums) have put up book scanners that the public can use. They have the same function as a public copier, but you get your copies on a USB stick rather than on paper.
Nice, are they all scanners like this? https://se.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fil:Allm%C3%A4nhetens_bokscanner_Vitterhetsakademiens_bibliotek_1.JPG
The only thing I know about is that some (few) libraries let you use copiers of this sort to scan books and have them on USB drive, email or HTTP/FTP server: http://usa.kyoceradocumentsolutions.com/americas/jsp/Kyocera/productdetails.jsp?pid=20998 In theory two separate C-levels of my university promised me to make one or more available to students using a fraction of the 6-figures budget for copiers, but you can't imagine the internal fights there are in my universities around copiers.
Nemo
Wikisource-l mailing list Wikisource-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikisource-l
Klaus Graf, 13/06/2013 17:47:
Since years there are lots of FREE to use (Zeutschel) scanners in most German academic libraries.
Sure, in fact I used your advice/docs on settings and so on when I looked for one here. :) However we're not as lucky around here...
Nemo
On 06/13/2013 05:47 PM, Klaus Graf wrote (on Wikisource-l):
Since years there are lots of FREE to use (Zeutschel) scanners in most German academic libraries.
Is there any documentation on how to use them for Wikisource? Or is German Wikisource fully busy with proofreading books that have already been scanned by institutions?
The same question goes to Tomasz (on the cultural-partners mailing list) for the Polish case.
Maybe it is obvious for you, that these options exist in your countries. But I think good documentation and the international network of the Wikimedia community can provide inspiration for other countries.
2013/6/13 Federico Leva (Nemo) nemowiki@gmail.com:
Nice, are they all scanners like this? https://se.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fil:Allm%C3%A4nhetens_bokscanner_Vitterhetsakademiens_bibliotek_1.JPG
No, I think they are all different models. There seems to be no coordination in Sweden.
2013/6/13 Lars Aronsson lars@aronsson.se:
On 06/13/2013 05:47 PM, Klaus Graf wrote (on Wikisource-l):
Since years there are lots of FREE to use (Zeutschel) scanners in most German academic libraries.
Is there any documentation on how to use them for Wikisource?
I do not think this is needed. The possibility is known to the community.
Or is German Wikisource fully busy with
proofreading books that have already been scanned by institutions?
or by individuals.
I personally have a network to get some library scans for free and the University Library Düsseldorf is offering since years the possibility for registered users to suggest pre-1900 books for their digital collections (for FREE). You can contact me if you find something interesting in the pre-1900 Public Domain in the Düsseldorf OPAC:
I have published this fine option to enrich the digital Public Domain several times in my blog http://archiv.twoday.net and have also reported on the also FREE Grenoble service:
http://archiv.twoday.net/stories/326202222/
Only for Danish books FREE is the Kopenhagen service I mentioned at
http://archiv.twoday.net/stories/197336195/
Wikimedia Deutschland e.V. supports the German Wikisource community with funding to let books digitize by libraries.
Klaus Graf
The same question goes to Tomasz (on the cultural-partners mailing list) for the Polish case.
Maybe it is obvious for you, that these options exist in your countries. But I think good documentation and the international network of the Wikimedia community can provide inspiration for other countries.
2013/6/13 Federico Leva (Nemo) nemowiki@gmail.com:
Nice, are they all scanners like this?
https://se.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fil:Allm%C3%A4nhetens_bokscanner_Vitterhetsakademiens_bibliotek_1.JPG
No, I think they are all different models. There seems to be no coordination in Sweden.
-- Lars Aronsson (lars@aronsson.se)
Wikimedia Sverige - stöd fri kunskap - http://wikimedia.se/
Project Runeberg - free Nordic literature - http://runeberg.org/
Wikisource-l mailing list Wikisource-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikisource-l
Would it make sense to have a shared map of GLAM resources?
Micru
On Thu, Jun 13, 2013 at 2:52 PM, Klaus Graf klausgraf@googlemail.comwrote:
2013/6/13 Lars Aronsson lars@aronsson.se:
On 06/13/2013 05:47 PM, Klaus Graf wrote (on Wikisource-l):
Since years there are lots of FREE to use (Zeutschel) scanners in most German academic libraries.
Is there any documentation on how to use them for Wikisource?
I do not think this is needed. The possibility is known to the community.
Or is German Wikisource fully busy with
proofreading books that have already been scanned by institutions?
or by individuals.
I personally have a network to get some library scans for free and the University Library Düsseldorf is offering since years the possibility for registered users to suggest pre-1900 books for their digital collections (for FREE). You can contact me if you find something interesting in the pre-1900 Public Domain in the Düsseldorf OPAC:
I have published this fine option to enrich the digital Public Domain several times in my blog http://archiv.twoday.net and have also reported on the also FREE Grenoble service:
http://archiv.twoday.net/stories/326202222/
Only for Danish books FREE is the Kopenhagen service I mentioned at
http://archiv.twoday.net/stories/197336195/
Wikimedia Deutschland e.V. supports the German Wikisource community with funding to let books digitize by libraries.
Klaus Graf
The same question goes to Tomasz (on the cultural-partners mailing list) for the Polish case.
Maybe it is obvious for you, that these options exist in your countries. But I think good documentation and the international network of the Wikimedia community can provide inspiration for other countries.
2013/6/13 Federico Leva (Nemo) nemowiki@gmail.com:
Nice, are they all scanners like this?
<
https://se.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fil:Allm%C3%A4nhetens_bokscanner_Vitterhetsaka...
No, I think they are all different models. There seems to be no coordination in Sweden.
-- Lars Aronsson (lars@aronsson.se)
Wikimedia Sverige - stöd fri kunskap - http://wikimedia.se/
Project Runeberg - free Nordic literature - http://runeberg.org/
Wikisource-l mailing list Wikisource-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikisource-l
Wikisource-l mailing list Wikisource-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikisource-l
I just create last week this page http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Chapters_Association/Chapters_Excha...
to try to aggregate chapter's experience in digitization project.
cheers
Charles
___________________________________________________________ I use this email for mailing list only.
Charles ANDRES, Chairman "Wikimedia CH" – Association for the advancement of free knowledge – www.wikimedia.ch Skype: charles.andres.wmch IRC://irc.freenode.net/wikimedia-ch
Le 13 juin 2013 à 15:39, Lars Aronsson lars@aronsson.se a écrit :
Some research libraries in Stockholm (at archives and museums) have put up book scanners that the public can use. They have the same function as a public copier, but you get your copies on a USB stick rather than on paper.
This opens an interesting opportunity for Wikisource and similar volunteer book scanning projects. Instead of buying expensive equipment, experimenting with cameras and lighting, or building your own scanner, you can just visit such a library. I guess you can even bring your own book and scan it there, instead of just using the library's books. (Of course you still need to consider copyright. That goes without saying.)
Wikimedia Sverige, the Swedish chapter of the WMF, started a wiki page to document some experience from this kind of use, in Swedish of course, https://se.wikimedia.org/wiki/Allm%C3%A4nhetens_bokscanner
Here is an example of a book that was scanned this way, http://runeberg.org/nordmuseet/1897/0001.html (Ironically, it is the annual report for 1897 of the museum where it was scanned. They have the scanner standing in their own library, but they have not scanned their own reports.)
Are you familiar with anyting similar? Any other pages that we should link to?
-- Lars Aronsson (lars@aronsson.se)
Wikimedia Sverige - stöd fri kunskap - http://wikimedia.se/
Project Runeberg - free Nordic literature - http://runeberg.org/
Cultural-Partners mailing list Cultural-Partners@wikimedia.ch https://intern.wikimedia.ch/lists/listinfo/cultural-partners Please treat emails sent to this list as confidential.Ask senders for permission before forwarding emails off-list.
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