BOOKSCAN became really popular in Japan during the last couple
of years. They digitize your books in PDF and use OCR to make
text searchable (it's not perfect, but definitely helps).

They cut the spine of the books, scan them in, OCR, and Quality Check.
Your book is then shredded and recycled.
You are emailed a link to your PDF, with options for optimized versions
for iPad, iPhone, Kindle, Nook, and others.

They opened shop in America this year as http://www.1dollarscan.com

$1 per 100 book pages.

The founder came up with the idea because bookshelves falling
on people is one of the most common causes of death in Japanese
earthquakes. He didn't want to worry about his children losing their
life to a bookshelf. So he scanned all his books and put them into his iPad.

No longer after (1 or 2 years, I forget), the company made 2 million in revenue
for the year.

If you want to see how their process works, go here (video in Japanese):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OXR9qZFOsmk

There are many reviews on the web. So Google them for opinions.

And yes, they do scan Japanese books (as well as 8 other languages including English).

Last edited by chamcham (2011 November 25, 10:57 am)