The Archivist: A DIY Book Scanner
Five years ago book digitization was the domain of giants — Microsoft and Google. Commercial book scanners cost as much as a small car. Collectively, we tried to fix that. Here’s how to build the Archivist — the VW Beetle of book scanners — cheap, durable, and tremendously effective. It’s open source (Raspberry Pi and Canon Hacks Development Kit) and made with simple materials like plywood, bungees, and skateboard bearings. As fast as you can turn the pages, the Archivist photographs them automatically and creates a zip file of the entire book, for conversion to the e-book format of your choice.
