Amber – John is right about using a book scanner if you can afford one. Though we only have a staff of two full-time archivists and one part-time, finding a quality book scanner that our students could use to complete projects in acceptable time while providing high quality images to convert to usable PDF files presented its own problems. We eventually settled on Atez’s Book Drive Pro which is their top of the line model though there is a Book Drive Mini as well as a new Scandock depending on your budget (http://www.atiz.com/). Before we purchased the scanner Atez set up an appointment for us to review the machine on-site with one of their customers. Once we saw the demo and talked with the archivist in charge, we were hooked. As a result we are rapidly scanning our serials, old books and archival collections to preservation standards while maintaining the physical integrity of each record.
