[shard]

This really needs to be redesigned for ergonomics.

- Lever should have a button for capture

- Display should be visible while looking down

But now I see why destructive scanning (slicing the binding off and using a sheet feeding scanner) is so attractive. For any non-rare books, this is just too tedious and time consuming to go through for more than a few books.

[markvdb]

Display should be visible indeed.

Your capture triggering suggestion is not as great though. The systems that I shipped with http://diybookscanner.eu actually used a USB foot pedal for triggering the cameras. That's by far a superior user experience to pressing a button while both hands are busy moving a cradle...

Destructive scanning feels incredibly cruel to the books. A non-destructive system like this actually works fairly well. You can expect to get up to about 1000-1200 pages an hour with it.

[shard]

> Destructive scanning feels incredibly cruel to the books.

I suppose it depends on whether it has sentimental value. When I was young, I'd treat my books like treasures, putting covers on them (even paperbacks), making sure I didn't crease the spine when I read them. Now I consider books to be a temporary store of knowledge as the contents pass to my brain. I fold pages, underline, scribble notes in them. There are thousands more copies out there, I don't feel any need to baby my copy.

[BeetleB]

> For any non-rare books, this is just too tedious and time consuming to go through for more than a few books.

If your goal is to scan a whole bunch, it's tedious. If you want to do it once in a while, it's not really a problem.