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We want to scan a library with about 30,000 Books.

For that purpose we think about purchasing the Qidenius book scanner. What characteristics of the Qidenius Book Scanner would benefit a library with a collection of our size?

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Could you reformulate this into a "what characteristics of this particular product would benefit a library with a collection of our size"? As of right now it's just asking for experiences, which are impossible to evaluate as correct or not. – jonsca♦ Dec 6 '12 at 20:09
Okay - how can I reopen this question? – ChrisZZ Dec 7 '12 at 5:30
All set. You can flag anything that you think will need to be reopened as well. – jonsca♦ Dec 7 '12 at 5:34
I edited out the polling for experiences, but if people happen to share them as part of their answer, it's probably okay. – jonsca♦ Dec 7 '12 at 5:35

1 Answer

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Make sure the acquisition is really justified in terms of volume and ROI, and consider also renting or out-sourcing - 30.000 volumes suddenly looks much smaller when looking at the maximum throughput of a high-end scanrobot. The actual throughput that can be obtained through automation depends a lot on the kind of source material and the ready availability of human operators or "supervisors" though.

Thus the key question really is how suitable the source material in the library is for such an automated process - for example with regards to age, fragility and value, size and variations therein, etc. The bottom line is: the more heterogeneous the collection in physical characteristics, the less likely you are to benefit from the use of a scanrobot.

While from 2008, this concise report from Julian Hall on the Munich Scan Robot Days still provides a helpful overview of the automated scanrobots currently available on the market.

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We are in Ethiopia, so outsourcing or renting is unlikely. Also our source-material is not very fragile, as it is not an old library. We have mostly standard-books and readers. Also we got a very nice offer for an equipment, that was used already for a fair (2 month) with 50% price reduction. We would never be able to pay the full price. – ChrisZZ Dec 21 '12 at 5:12

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