Remember that $300 do-it-yourself rapid e-book scanner I mentioned in my post the other day about ethics and legality?
Instructables has gone that scanner one better, with instructions for building a $20 photographic-scanning rig. The entry describes creating a roughly pyramidal framework out of hardware including tie rods, angle brackets, and shelf tracks. Into the framework one mounts a digital camera, which is then used to take photos of the book between turning the pages.
While not as sophisticated as the $300 model, the simplicity and economy of this approach is nonetheless remarkable and may still very well produce images that are “good enough”. I would be interested to hear from anyone who actually makes and uses this gizmo.
(Found via Gizmodo.)