The world is slowly but surely adapting to a world where physical books are being slowly replaced by ebooks. Just recently, I’ve cleaned out almost half of the books on my bookshelves (and I tell you, it’s quite extensive) because I have almost all of them in my ebook reader. Reading an actual book is still a more complete experience but with ebooks you get to free up so much space in your home, it’s more environmentally responsible and you can bring your whole library with you if you want.
To mark the inevitable stride towards an ebook-dominated world, Plustek has released the OpticBook 3800 Scanner that makes digitizing books easier. Truth be told, this is not a plug it and leave it affair — someone has developed a machine that can flip through pages and scan it for you but with a cost of $250,000 I don’t think it’s going to be moving huge numbers of units; whereas this Plustek scanner is only $300. But even though it still requires your undivided attention it does contain certain features that make the task easier.
For example, the edge of the scanner is as close to the edge as possible, this allows you to scan as close to the spine as possible. The company then added what it calls the SEE or Shadow Elimination Element, a technology that eliminates the shadow and the distorted text that happens at the point where the page curves into the spine. The scanner lid also has an extra layer of padding to help press the books more firmly towards the scanner bed, which helps reduce the shadow and distortion as well. If you’re on a mission to scan a number of books in your collection that are not available in ebook format in Amazon or other sellers (you probably have a lot of out-of-print books) then the Plustek OpticBook 3800 scanner should be on your must-buy list.