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Scanners & Digitization Tools: Book Scanner

This guide provides a basic overview of the book scanner, the microform scanner, and the transcription pedal; all of which are available for faculty, student, and staff digitization projects big and small.

 

Shain Library is home to a state-of-the-art self-service book scanner called the KIC Bookeye 4 v2. Email files to yourself or save them to a USB drive.

While the scanner should be easy to use and intuitive for all, some guidance on its special features could save you time and resources, enabling you to make high quality (400 dpi), text searchable (OCR) digital images, PDFs, and even MP3 audio files of any text (as large as 17" x 24") with the push of a button.

Need help with the book scanner? Ask a Librarian!

 

Additional Guidelines for Use

1) Use only the large touch-screen for all operations; do not touch the front panel.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2) Begin scanning to enable settings, then go back and delete unwanted images. Scanned images remain available for 5 minutes before the session ends automatically due to inactivity.

3) Pages can be scanned flat or in a V-cradle mode (less strain on book spine, clearer images). There are only these two modes. The cradle appears to have multiple settings, but that is not what those grooves are for; the cradle is either open in V mode or flat; no gradations.

4) Be sure to select your scan mode intentionally:

  • Single images: good when you want facing pages of a text to share a single page in the final document (e.g. 2 pages per sheet). 
  • Auto split: this default setting can be trouble.
  • Split in half: detects the left and right edges of your document and literally splits them in half, with the center being the space between the two panels that makeup the cradle; best for separating facing pages of a text.
  • Book mode: attempts to crop out unwanted fingers, gutters, and margins that may be present in the scanned version of your text.

5) Additional settings are available by selecting the Scan Settings button on the touch-screen:

 

  • Set the quality of the image (set DPI to 100, 200, 300, or 400); 
  • Set the color to black & white; shades of gray; or color;
  • Set the scan mode: single image, split image, etc.
  • Specify the cradle position: flat or V-mode

 

6) When sending files via email, a standard 25 MB size limit applies to all messages. This means that if you scan say 100 pages, they will be broken in multiple multi-page files and sent separately.