[rez]

Latest project is a Street&Smith Pub., SuperMagician2, which is so brittle

that as it lies there and I turn each page to scan

it falls off the spine and I have to remove paper particles off the scanner between each page. It's the worse I have ever attempted.

Regardless if a book is PD and for this site or not these gems have to be scanned and catalogued before they fade away to dust and nothingness.

[phabox]

Sounds almost as bad as my copy of Star Spangled Comics_013 (R.I.P.)  ,We do suffer for the cause don't we ?

-Nigel

[rez]

ya, who needs crossword puzzles anymore?
snorK* 

Sounds almost as bad as my copy of Star Spangled Comics_013 (R.I.P.)  ,We do suffer for the cause don't we ?

-Nigel

[OtherEric]

Some books, I think you qualify as lucky if you can get one last use out of scanning them before they fall apart.  Which is probably a worthwhile trade-off; at least you have a readable digital copy when you're done.

That highlights why scanning old books is so important; the digital copies we make are going to keep circulating through various methods for a very long time as the originals turn to dust.  What we do to preserve and distribute these old books matters; our lone copy may be further damaged but there will soon be dozens of copies out there that people can keep copying and distributing; effectively free.

(Looks at the Super-Magician cover)  The S&S comics really do keep some of the pulp feel, don't they?  Looks like fun, it's too bad that S&S and their successors a) renewed their books correctly, and b) are pretty much completely out of the comic related business.

[Yoc]

Well said Eric!!
And I too have had a book crumble so bad it required I clean the scanner bed after each scan.  In fact there's a tiny particle of pulp paper that somehow slipped INSIDE of my scanner and I can see it each time I look down inside the scanner!   

Rez, I hope you'll let me know when your S&S scan is done so we can arrange for them to be distributed somewhere other than on GAC.  I know there are S&S fans out there who love this title!

-Yoc

[narfstar]

My Sad Sack and Cartoonists giveaways are in that condition.  I will have to place pieces together and will still be loosing some corners and edges of the art.

[Geo (R.I.P.)]

I suspect all of us that have been scanning on our old books have come across this problem Rez, I know I have too.

Geo

[JVJ]

I have a whole shelf of brittle books, guys.
I put each page into a clear plastic sheet holder, assemble them into a cheap plastic three-ring binder/folder and put a vertical Dymo label on the spine and a color scan of the cover into the outer slot of the folder. You can even scan through the plastic and you never get chips on your scanner bed. Try it, you'll like it.

[Yoc]

Hehe, sounds cool Jim.
Send us a picture of your bookshelf sometime.


-Yoc