This reminds me of college, where I used to take my textbooks to the local copy shop to get the pages sliced out and three-hole punched so I only had to carry around currently relevant chapters rather than 30 lbs of books.
As for e-books, long story short, my low-tech chop-and-punch method tended to be cheaper and/or more convenient than the available legal e-book options at the time.
I considered scanning, and even had access to a sheet-fed duplex scanner, but given that the only mobile device I had at the time, a 17" PowerBook G4, was both awkward as an e-book reader and heavier than the unbound printed pages I was carrying around, it wasn't worth the hassle.
I actually bought a special flatbed book scanner where the glass was flush with one side and scanned every page of a book and then returned it. Scanning was tedious but not too bad while watching a good show or movie and getting my money back felt so good. Adobe Acrobat Pro can convert 800MB of scanned pages into a 70MB PDF with searchable and copy-able text.
As for e-books, long story short, my low-tech chop-and-punch method tended to be cheaper and/or more convenient than the available legal e-book options at the time.
I considered scanning, and even had access to a sheet-fed duplex scanner, but given that the only mobile device I had at the time, a 17" PowerBook G4, was both awkward as an e-book reader and heavier than the unbound printed pages I was carrying around, it wasn't worth the hassle.