Rare Book Scanning - The Method

Working for an organisation which has specialized in file and publication scanning, we often get enquiries from people who need their far more rarer, one off or delicate books to be scanned and often this brings some concern. It is easy to understand, they're older or fragile books so it is fair to get concerned concerning giving them into someone else's hands to be scanned and developed digitally.

It's obviously crucial for you to consider this company that will scan the books for you by looking at their qualifications (an ISO 9001:2000 is a superb indicator of a high quality scanning provider, as their job is examined by a 3rd party, plus they have established they supply fantastic outcomes), although there may be more than that which concerns you, like the handling and delicacy of the books.

A lot of expert book scanning companies may have what's known as an overhead scanner. This is in essence a scanner that enables the book to be put down flat face upwards, whilst a high tech camera photographs and reads each page independently to gather the contents for OCR requirements. OCR, if you are not sure, is the most modern solution to scan a physical document and extract the textual content information on disk drive so the file is computer legible and text searchable. Because this overhead scanner is, fundamentally, a top quality, technologically exceptional digital camera, this means the pages will not be exposed to nearby scanning equipment, an issue for many of our clients because of a fear of the pages becoming ruined or faded because of the process. Even though we've never experienced this issue, it's still an issue for a lot of people today so it really is most definitely better to be safe than sorry.

As soon as the overhead scanning is completed, the electronic files are then converted to the file format of choice, and that is generally PDF or JPEG. After it is accomplished any cleaning up or improvements in contrast shall be completed and is seen by a quality control staff prior to distribution to you no matter if for internet reading or on your hard disk via a CD, DVD or USB Stick. That is the normal procedure for rare book scanning, but remember this may change from business to business.

While we understand your problems on the topic and you are justified within that, the task is quite safe and is the least damaging to the book's delicate pages and features as it can possibly be. When you have the book scanned and in a electronic digital format, the publication can be retained forever and viewed for a long time ahead, and exactly what could be as good as that for a genuine rare work of art?

Steve Wright is advertising and marketing executive for Pearl Scan Solutions, a United Kingdom based service provider of rare book scanning and other forms of book scanning. We take perfect care with your publications, constantly using gloves and using our longest established team members to handle the book scanning.