Books @lemmy.world Flying Squid @lemmy.world 1 mo. ago

This may be the wrong place to ask, but- Does anyone know of a reputable service that would turn a decades-old print book into an eBook?

In the 1980s, my father wrote a book that an analysis and annotation of another well-known book which is now in the public domain. My family owns the rights to this annotation (we checked with the press that put it out). I think it would make a really good eBook if someone wanted to scan it all in, digitize it, and turn all the annotations into hyperlinks. I know that theoretically I could do that all myself, but I feel like that's something bigger than I can tackle alone. He was a scholar, so he did a huge amount of research on the book which is basically unavailable now to anyone who is interested in it.

So could anyone recommend a good service to do this? I don't know that I could necessarily raise the funds to do it, but I think it would be worth a try with a kickstarter or something.

13 comments

I think archive.org had something where you could donate a material to get it put into the archive as an ebook. I don't know what happened to that program.

I might have found it: https://help.archive.org/help/how-do-i-make-a-physical-donation-to-the-internet-archive/

If this was me, I would give them an email on what the process entails and if you can get the material back.
- Awesome! I will check that out, thanks!
How many pages is it? If you could scan the pages, the rest of it (conversion, annotation, hyperlinks) could be crowd sourced? Could even put it together as a github repo to manage the links and content, using that to generate the final ebook output

https://alejandroschuler.github.io/mybookname/guide/publish/github-pages.html
- Significantly longer than the original novel, so scanning alone would take a very long time and I don't even have a scanner.
  
  There are companies specializing in document management. One of the services they offer (besides archiving, secure destruction, etc.) is scanning books and creating high-quality pdfs of their contents. This is usually a (semi-)automated process that uses a machine that opens the book only as much as necessary, to try not to even damage its spine. I’ve used it professionally and can vouch for this kind of service, even if I cannot really recommend you a particular provider, since I very much doubt you live near me, in Europe. Still, I’m pretty sure you can find one close to you if you search.
  
  This will only take you halfway there, by producing a good quality pdf version of the book that you could share with others. To go the extra step of OCR’ing it, proofreading, adding the links, would need something else…
  
  As someone who has dabbled in genealogy, even a simple phone scan can be appreciated by the right audience. I always preferred transcription and OCR of course, but that first jump from "not online" to "online" was always a huge relief.
Check your local public library, if possible! Many libraries are equipped with scanners for digitizing local newspapers and so on. Librarians might also have connections elsewhere with book scanners.
- This is a good answer. I think your local librarian would be thrilled that you're trying to do this and most of them would likely put forth a completely undue amount of effort to assist you with it.
  
  Source: I used to hang out at the library a whole lot

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