Post something about yourself here (The Hello Thread)

[GoDigital]

Hi:

I have way too many books that I have accumulated over the years and I would like to scan them. I hope to build a scanner soon. I'm an engineer and I live in the Washington DC area. Thanks to Dan and all the posters here for sharing your ideas.

-GoDigital

[daniel_reetz]

In the DC area! What are the chances you'll be free on or around January 12th? I'm going to be giving a talk about the project in DC for World Fair Use day, and I'd love to actually meet someone from the forums.

Thanks for your work on the wiki!

[GoDigital]

Dan:

I could take a day off from work to be available on January 12th and I would love to hear your talk. I live in Great Falls, Virginia. Do you need a place to stay? Do you need help setting up for the conference? Let me know how I can help.

-GoDigital

[Aegre Reminiscens]

Hello,

I am thinking of building my own Bookscanner and registered here to discuss my ideas.

I did a 3D-Animation of my Idea, but I think I need some improvements in some of the Parts.

I have to spend about 100-150€ every month on Books, and this is money I want to save in the future. Thats why I want a Bookscanner. In August I start studying and all of my friends said, that the important books in the library are mostly only available for a few days, so to scan these books and to carry them around on a notebook would be the best solution!

Also the idea of a Bookscanner for all my friends is nice, and some kind of system where everybody can come in, bring a book, scan it, have a coffee with me ... is nice! I think knowledge is free and should be free and should not be bound to a defined location (like a book). Knowledge should be everywhere, and something can only be everywhere, when its online.

Cheers
Aegre Reminiscens

[Luke]

Hi, everyone,

I read about the community and project in Wired and was fascinated. I love the idea of using eBook readers, but have had the problem of what to do with my own home library. I teach abroad, and it's difficult for me to travel with (or without!) by books. Being able to quickly and easily scan them at home and pack them with me on my laptop or a reader will make a world of difference for me.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to reading, learning, and hopefully being able to contribute a bit, too!

[LucasTizma]

Wow. All I can say is wow. I am literally speechless at how amazingly creative, intelligent, crafty, and devoted you all are! I can't even imagine having the capacity to design, prepare, and build a book scanner. It's incredible to see a single project turn into a rapidly developing community of like-minded people who have contributed so much time and energy into a common passion.

Anyway, just wanted to introduce myself as a completely clueless, mostly talentless person who really admires what you all are doing.

[erroneus]

I only wish i had the resources necessary to do what it being done by others here. It requires focus, determination, time, space and all manner of other things such as need, desire and purpose. Among all my other weaknesses, need and desire are pretty strong but my purpose is somewhat limited.

I found this site because of a Slashdot.org story. I have an old book I would REALLY like to preserve in digital form. It is an old and rare book. A first edition signed by the author who died in the 1950s. I have had no luck finding the current copyright holder and the probability of finding this book again in digital form is pretty slim. (ironically, the first time I found/read this book, it was from an FTP site in the early days of the internet before the WWW went mainstream.) In any case, I would dearly like to get this book digitized and OCRd. It is and important and significant book and would really like to see it preserved.

Here is some info on the book itself:

HOME AGAIN
by James Edmiston

Doubleday & Company, Inc., Garden City, New York, 1955

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 55-5265*


I presently reside in Northern Virginia. If anyone in the area would like to volunteer their assistance, I would be grateful.

Copyright, 1955, by James Ewen Edmiston, Jr.(c)
All Rights Reserved
Printed in the United States
At the Country Life Press, Garden City, N.Y.
First Edition

*http://lccn.loc.gov/55005265

-----

I did a little more searching on a whim and this time I actually came up with something! I found the book in text file form!! I would still like to digitize this book in its current format preserving the illustrations, the cover, the author's signature and all that. But it is great that the text file form of the book still lives! And lives again in my hard drive storage.

[achmeep]

Hello folks,

Just found this website through the Wired article about DIY book scanners.

I just graduated from uni with a BSc. in Geoscience. I'm onto my second degree - mechanical engineering. I have a wide variety of interests, from tinkering with machines, to rock climbing, skiing, and photography. I have to keep in mind a final project to work on for my mechanical engineering project term. A fully automated book scanner could be a very unique challenge to pursue. I am very fortunate in that I have access to a machine shop through my school. We've got a lot of expensive machinery which I can tinker on (think water-jet cutters and 5-axis CNC mills). It would be a shame not to use them for a project such as this.

As with everyone here, I love books. I love reading. And I really dislike expensive textbooks.

[mvandewettering]

Hello all. My name is Mark, and I'm a bit of a geek. My job is as a technical director and software engineer working in the field of computer graphics, but I have a passion in old books. I've long wanted a scanner for old books, but as recently as a couple of years ago, I didn't really think it was feasible. I'm glad to see this website, and his forum.

I'm particularly interested in old technical and science books. The current pride of my fledgling collection is a copy of Johnson's Natural History, which consists of two volumes, and contains almost 1500 etchings of different animals. I tried to get a couple of different projects interested in digitizing it and making it available via archive.org or the like, but didn't have any success. As a tease, here is an example from the book that I photographed with my old Nikon:


I'd be interested in meeting anyone from the San Francisco Bay Area (I'm in the East Bay) who may have a scanner completed who would be willing to take on this project and/or who might be willing to mentor my own construction project. And, I'll be following this forum closely. \

[elsatch]

Hi,
My name is Cesar. I have lots of books, but I'd love a searchable indexable versión of everyone of them. I'm also researching about zen buddhism and need to keep a copy of some extracts or articles, so this DIY scanner fits perfectly. I discovered this site in Slashdot a couple of days ago and began to build my scanner. A cardboard box, some cheap photo frame glasses and my lovely couple of Olympus DSLR and a IR remote that shots both camera, all at home... so lovely. I'll post some photos once I'm able to build something not so ugly.