Scanners

Intro

There are a lot of types of Scanners on the market today. Some of them are too expensive for Small CH institutions. The type of scanner that shows as more usable is flat scanner in A3 format. It can cover the most use examples for 2D text and images:

• Books
• Manuscripts
• Maps
• Newspapers
• Magazines
• Notebooks
• Fotographs
• Postcards

There are also scanners that scan film negative, slides, that have better support for photographs and postcards. These scanners, today, are not too expensive either.

All scanners have their own software for scanning, but not all have a version for Linux. Please check before purchasing the scanner if it has a Linux version.

There is a solution for Linux, software Xsane. This scanning tool for Linux even supports the scanners that don’t have native driver support for Linux. Software can be downloaded from almost all Linux Distros package managers.

Formats

All scanned material is recommended to be saved in uncompressed TIFF format and resolution 300 dpi (dots per inch). That material is called Master Copy and serves for archiving in the best quality. Photographs and postcards are recommended to be scanned in 600 dpi in the same format. Almost all scanners have their own software for scanning but not all support Linux OS which can be a problem if this OS is used. Before getting the scanner check how it is supported on Linux.

Use

Using a scanner is very simple. Just put the material on a scanning glass and click scan.

The process

First define the format and resolution in a scanner software, format is TIFF (recommended) and 300 dpi for printed and written material, 600 dpi for images, photographs, slides, films.

Books, Manuscripts, Newspapers and Magazines

For scanning of this type of materials, freely decide whether to scan one page or both pages in an open book.

NEVER SCAN TEXT ONLY

If the size of the opened material is bigger than the scanning glass, scan page by page. If the size of a page is bigger, then there are two options, make more scans and fit them, later, in software, or use a photo camera.

Photographs and Postcards

Scanning this type of material regarding that they have two sides, scan them both. For postcards the beck side can be written and photographs may have written notes also, which can be valuable info about it.

Film negatives and slides

Use a specialized scanner for this purpose, they have slides and film holders. This type of scanners, mostly support high resolution scans that enlarge the scan, regarding that dimensions of film and slides are small. This at the end gives a large scan for better preview on screen