Does anyone have any experience with book scanning in general? I've been eyeballing a unit from "CZUR" but am a bit skeptical of the product in general. I would prefer to buy something more generic/high end HW wise like a V-shaped scanner where you bring your own DSLRs but can't find out if there is a serious open source software platform for them.
I made a hardware DIY Book scanner and run it off a Rpi using https://github.com/Tenrec-Builders/pi-scan with two Nikon J1 cameras. If you're not an experienced handy-person be prepared for frustration and spending more than you think on tools.
Otherwise very happy with the result and experience. I can scan about 800 pages per hour currently. Once scanned I use scan tailor to adjust the pages then a small script to tesseract OCR them before creating a PDF.
I typically do all the scanning while watching Netflix as it doesn't require a lot of attention once you get in the flow.
What a shame that people have to use homebrew methods to duplicate the effort that someone (Google) has already done with vastly greater resources.
Google Books, a.k.a., Google Book Search, has already scanned and OCR'ed about 20% of all books in existence -- i.e., 25 million of an estimated 130 million books. So, "somewhere at Google there is a database containing 25 million books and nobody is allowed to read them."[1]
I understand the legal issues, authors not getting compensated, etc., but it's still a shame that it actually exists but it's inaccessible (except for snippets).
Well, at least Google has all the books indexed, even if we can't see them, so that you know what to go to your local library and look for even though you can't see it there on the internet.
I plan to build a [linear book scanner](https://linearbookscanner.org/) someday. I admit it doesn't satify OP's concern though, at it uses two upward-facing flatbed scanners, rather than consumer cameras.
