DIY Book Scanner Article in New York Law School Review

[daniel_reetz]

Hi all, I'm proud to announce that DIY Book Scanning is now an article in New York Law School Review:

http://www.nyls.edu/index.php?cID=2789

The article I wrote describes a lot of what we do here, and why we do it (although I know we don't all do it for the same reasons). It's not the first time DIY Book Scanner has shown up in academia, and it won't be the last, either.

It is, however, my first article where I am the sole author.

Direct link to PDF:
http://www.nyls.edu/user_files/1/3/4/17 ... .17.10.pdf

[spamsickle]

Congratulations on having your article published.

I especially enjoyed the words "programmers" and "pedagogical". Keep up the good work!

[strider1551]

Congratulations!

I skimmed through it quickly and plan on actually reading it later, but one thing that really caught my eye:

No paper book prevents anyone from writing in it, pressing flowers in it, or passing it on to a friend. No paper book can be revoked or remotely disabled. No paper book needs to be switched off during takeoff and landing. However, no paper book connects to the Internet and, by extension, to social networks...

It's easy to be pessimistic about digital books because of DRM and other sad realities, but how refreshing it is to think of the ways computers can make books more accessible and more beneficial to society than they already are. A few weeks ago a friend of mine mentioned how cool it would be if there was a social app that tracked your favorite quotes from books and the notes you have on passages, and then book clubs could use it to see what everyone else in the group likes and is thinking as a primer for meeting in person. I forgot about it until the mention of books connecting to the Internet and social networks.

[daniel_reetz]

Thanks, guys. I'm in total agreement, I think there's good reason to be very positive about the future of books, and I'm not kidding when I say that what's happened on this forum has influenced many of the top thinkers on the topic.

We'll keep the pressure on to make better ebooks, and it will improve the state of the whole system. Competition is good.