What I really want is to cut the bindings off my books, feed the loose pages into a scanner and suck the entire book onto disk. Unfortunately, I don't feel like investing into an auto-feed scanner (>500$) in order to scan a half a dozen books (<200$). Does anyone operate a service where you can mail them a book and they'll email you the result after pulping it? -- RK ---- You need not think of it as a project to scan a half-dozen books, if your library is larger and growing beyond the space you allocate for it. Try a scheme called PaperPorting. I have been continually scanning, not only books with bindings cut away and discarded, but all manner of papers and records formerly taking up spaces on shelves, in boxes, in filing cabinets, as well as periodicals with valued content. A good scanner, and the one I am presently using for letter-size, legal-size, and smaller sheet feedable artifacts, is the ADS-2000, presently retailing at under $350 (20141226) (I have seen it going for $250), and capable of double-sided, fairly rapid scanning. A book of 500 pages can be scanned in a single hour or two. This will greatly reduce your physical-reference-document-footprint, as well as provide for your local paper-recycling artifactory the pulp needed to make new paper without relying on trees and other growing plants for the raw-material for making paper. ---- Answers to question - ''Does anyone operate a service ...'': * When you prefer someone else to do the scanning for you, consider these and other resources: ** paper-documents *** http://www.datastorageinc.com/services/scanning-costs ** boxes of paper-artifacts *** http://docufree.com/bing-paper-scanning/ ** Even 3d artifacts *** http://scan.laserdesign.com/3d-laser-scanning ** or search for many others: *** http://search.yahoo.com/yhs/search?p=scanning+companies&ei=UTF-8&hspart=mozilla&hsimp=yhs-001 ---- If you have time to do-it-yourself: * My solution ( What I am now using ) -- DonaldNoyes ** http://search.yahoo.com/yhs/search?p=ads-2000+brother+scanner&ei=UTF-8&hspart=mozilla&hsimp=yhs-001 http://support.brother.com/g/b/img/product/ads2000_us.jpg http://www1.pcmag.com/media/images/300406-brother-imagecenter-ads-2000-scanning-right-view.jpg ---- CategoryOrganization CategorySimplification CategoryBooks CategoryRecycling