Paper Upgrade Project

I recently gave a brief talk at Portland State University for Amanda Gomm for her digital publishing course, during which I discussed book scanning, the future of books, and our vision for a better digital world for students. The initially choppy audio gets better quickly. :-)

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In January of this year, CNCRouterParts.com cut 4 scanners for us using their Computer Numerical Controlled (CNC) router. Here is a video showing the process.

Recently, we have been asked by various people if we can scan library books. If the own the book, the answer is yes. If the library owns the book, then No, unless you agree to simply copy small portions of the work, since scanning the entire book is prohibited by Copyright Law.

Also, to use our services (for library books or books you own), you will need to sign the Terms and Services document below:

Paper Upgrade Project Terms and Conditions

Portland Students and General public,

This Saturday starting at 10AM at Brainsilo (2119 N. Kerby Ave. Suite C-2 – Portland, OR 97227), the Paper Upgrade Project (paperupgrade.org), a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt educational public charity, is hosting a small and informal free book scanning session. Feel free to bring a book or two, and, time permitting, we'll scan it for you for free or show you how to do so. Priority goes to registered PDX students, then to the general public.

Updated: DIY E-book Creator 0.0.8
Download: http://code.google.com/p/diy-ebook-creator/downloads/list
Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ncKw9ZfyrRg (from version 0.0.6)

I've made a bunch of changes (http://code.google.com/p/diy-ebook-creator/downloads/list) on the DIY E-Book Creator, mostly adding these features:

1. Create Scantailor project files
2. Automatically open #1 to let users make final adjustments before OCR
3. Allow user to select color processing mode (e.g. Black and White, Color/Grayscale, or Mixed)
4. Bug fixes

Watch the video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ncKw9ZfyrRg

Today, I updated the DIY E-Book Creator to 0.0.3 (http://code.google.com/p/diy-ebook-creator/downloads/list), adding these features:

New features:

1. Import also rotates images properly for scantailor
2. After Scantailor completes, it opens for you to adjust output
3. After you close Scantailor, ABBYY Finereader opens and creates PDF
4. Show a Before and After thumbnail in progress bar

Last night, I updated the DIY E-Book Creator to 0.0.2 (http://code.google.com/p/diy-ebook-creator/downloads/list), adding these features:

1. automatically run scantailor-cli.exe (sorry, Windows-only so far)
2. automatically OCR with ABBYY Finereader
3. properly respond to the Cancel button

Here is a (quickly-produced) video: http://blip.tv/mellowyellow/diy-ebook-creator-0-0-2-6034293

After about one month of pouring through The Dummies Guide to Python, Python Essentials, and the Definitive Guide to Django, I created a first attempt at streamlining the photos-to-ebook "workflow," which Daniel Reetz and I discussed during his trip here on January 28th. The idea is to create a framework capable of "plugging in" (more or less) the various other open source projects to allow the average user to use free, open-source software to easily create his own e-books. I am using the familiar step-by-step "wizard" approach.

Have questions about the Paper Upgrade Project? We have compiled a brief Overview of the Paper Upgrade Project to explain how things work. Thank you for your interest!