$250k book scanner swipes through 3,000 pages per hour
Just watching the DL 3000 book scanner in operation scares me. The bars that swoop over the book, raising and flapping pages, seem far too large and heavy-duty; it's as if a brush of wind or the slightest nudge would have their dumb repetitions turn your discolored, first-edition Psychopathia Sexualis into so much confetti.
It's claimed to be the fastest such scanner in the world, and the 3000's name refers to the number of pages it can scan in an hour; that's quick enough to bomb its way through half a dozen airport potboilers before you've even gotten through security. At $250,000, you won't be getting it for Christmas; worse, it can't do The Jungle Book: Pop-up Adventure.
Digitizing Line DL-3000 Book Scanner - aka the fastest in the world [Red Ferret Journal]
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However it still leaves them on the toilet tank when it's done.
Isn't it supposed to shred the books when done, as in Rainbows End?
that .gif is hypnotizing.
I know, I can't stop watching it. The existential dilemma becomes worse when you realize it's a looping animated GIF instead of an actual finite movie clip, and therefore the same page over and over again being rescanned.
Gee, here I was thinking they were just very thin pages.
It looks like the machine can't do paperbacks either.
Mesmerizing, yes, but this may be the first boingboing post to give me nightmares.
Having worked in an academic library, I can tell you that this would have been a lifesaver. I can't tell you the countless hours I've spent scanning pages of a book, openning the cover on the scanner, holding the book down, picking it up, turing the page, etc, just so some prof could put a chapter or two on e-reserve!
The only hardback books I've ever had that lie flat like that are books with seriously damaged spines. I would count that as destroying the book even if it doesn't shred the pages.
I've had hardcover books lay flat and wouldn't consider all of them damaged, just old. The newer ones though, hell no, keep that thing away from my babies.
The two arms that come in after the page is raised have got to be the cameras and lamps and aren't nearly as heavy-duty as they seem in the image. Still, I would be afraid of tearing and worse after a few minutes in that device.
@SEPPTB:
I remember the 'scanner' shredding the books _first_.
Does it do fine, error-free work like this?
http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/04/so_im_reviewing