Book Liberator

The Book Liberator is a camera-based book scanning device consisting of an adjustable book cradle and a 90 degree platen that sits on the open book to flatten the pages. The platen also provides mounting brackets for one or two standard consumer grade digital cameras and a handle for lifting the platen and cameras off of the book when flipping pages. Because cameras take pictures more or less instantly when compared to the scanning arms of flatbed scanners, people using the Book Liberator are quickly able to reach scanning speeds of 600-1000 pages per hour (when using two cameras).

Currently beta units are available for sale from Question Copyright, a US copyright reform non-profit. While the design is well tested, the beta process is meant to identify any flaws in manufacturing and, in particular, to get help evaluating different digital cameras that work well for book scanning.