Flatbed and Book scanner overview

Book and Flatbed Scanners Overview

Capturing books and other bound documents used be difficult and slow.  Now, the range of book and flatbed scanners available from Allied Images makes this task much easier and more productive. 

Specialist scanners are designed to handle books carefully and scan into the gutter to produce eBooks in different forms.

Book Scanners

Many universities, public libraries and archives need to capture books that are rare, out-of-print, fragile or in-demand so they can be made available to a wider audience while conserving them.  However, rare and fragile books needs careful handling else they may be damaged.  Mishandling includes excess spine flexing, exposure to harsh lighting and excess heat.  These problems have led to book scanners being complex, specialist equipment that is affordable only by a very restricted number of establishments. 

This was recognised by Dr Sarasin Booppanon, founder of Atiz, who realised that it was possible to manufacture a book scanner at an affordable price by combining high-quality digital cameras with computer software.

Atiz have stated that "Our mission is simple: a book scanner in every university and library in the world! We support global effort to create a universal library of all human knowledge. To date, we have helped hundreds of libraries around the world digitize millions of books in dozens of languages. We believe in the decentralized effort because it is the most viable way to create a universal library that does not leave any precious local books behind. "

Allied Images markets the Atiz BookDrive range of book scanners.

We also market Plustek OpticBook A300 A3 book scanner and EZ BookScan Centre.  Both feature Shadow Elimination Element (SEE) technology to scan within 2mm of the book edge allowing it to scan right into the gutter without shadow.

Flatbed scanners

Flatbed scanners are vital for capturing documents that are unsuitable for sheet fed scanners such as fabrics, fine art, fragile originals, books, bound documents and materials thicker than 20 mm.  All such originals must be placed on a glass or platen and the scanners moved across them.

Allied Images has supplied flatbed scanners to:

• art galleries

• fine art companies

• libraries &

• legal practices

Art galleries and fine art companies typically scan original works of art to create high-quality giclee¹ prints for resale.  This requires the use of reprographic software that allows colour calibration of the scanner/printer combination to ensure colour replication.  Libraries use flatbed/book scanners to record old and rare books while legal practices frequently have documents bound in bundles that cannot be separated.  Neither of these types of documents can go through sheet fed scanners.

Flatbed scanners are necessarily specialist low-volume items and require expertise to specify and install.  Allied has the experience and skill sets required to create a solution tailored to your needs.

Case study - Award-winning Western artist uses flatbed scanner.  Dr. Kenneth Wyatt makes his work more accessible and drives 'print-on-demand' strategy using Colortrac 24" x 36" high-resolution flatbed scanner.

For assistance with your book or flatbed scanning requirement please contact us on 01604 670679 or email us

Notes
1    giclee - fine art prints made from a digital source using an ink jet printer