>> Talk to Doug Jones. He recommends dismantling the book carefully
>> for the best quality copies/scans. The idea here is that the
>> information in its copied format is more valuable than the slivers
>> of dead trees that it currently resides on. Yes, books are a
>> valuable resource, but these are not unique books - they are
>> reference works that were published by the thousands. Once in
>> digital form, they are trivial to disseminate in a way that
>> is impossible for the originals.
>
>I completely recommend AGAINST destroying the original. Not only is it in
>some cases a historical artifact on its own, if the digital copy were ever
>to be lost then you're SOL.
In the case of the older DEC handbooks it's only a matter of time before
the completely disentigrate anyway. They were published on the worst
quality paper imaginable.
Your best bet is to take the books and have the binding cut off
professionally. Then scan in the pages one at a time (not two). I
personally believe Adobe Acrobat is the best way of doing this. Although I
realize there are people here that are against Adobe Acrobat.
BTW, I'm the type person that considers damaging a book a Capital Offense!
When I read a book I don't even crease the spine. Yet, in cases like this
I still think this is the right thing to do.
Zane
--
| Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator |
| healyzh_at_aracnet.com (primary) | OpenVMS Enthusiast |
| | Classic Computer Collector |
+----------------------------------+----------------------------+
| Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing, |
| and Zane's Computer Museum. |
| http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/ |
Received on Fri Jun 22 2001 - 11:42:09 BST