In January 2009, I made a cheap, simple book scanner and in April I put the complete plans online. Since then, many people have built their own scanners and made incredible improvements. This site is a place where we work together to further the art of DIY book scanners and software.

Our community has developed a whole ecosystem of scanner designs ranging from crude and expedient to polished and highly sophisticated. We've also helped develop and document free, Open-Source software to post-process the images. Our members include programmers, mechanical engineers, historians, book lovers, copyfighters, and people who've never handled a soldering iron. Together, we're addressing the first part of the digital books problem: the means of scanning. And we've only been at this since June of 2009. The scanners you see below were all developed for a purpose -- some for documenting history, some for helping the disabled read, some to make space in book-cramped homes, some to keep the peace in villages. Some for fun. There are as many reasons to build book scanners as there are book scanners.