Making Digital Your Occult Library... Options

(IMG:http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/54382000/jpg/_54382997_crusoe.jpg)

With the advance of ebook readers, smart phones and tablet devices it no longer needs to be a risk reading while on the train or in public in general, its now possible to study to your hearts content while in the pub or the park without risk of just so happening to come across a Jehovah's witness while doing so. An age is upon us. Problem is that many of us (I'm assuming I'm not alone in this) have a penchant for leather bound tomes and one off prints intending to detail arcane secrets less possessed by those who have not had the chance to have access to said book found amongst the belongings of said dead magician or alchemist now made, "available" in a limited print of 200 copies. To many the hardback still and will always rule and I personally couldn't imagine an empty would be library featuring only an IPad, fireplace and comfortable reading environment although many modern well known libraries have gone this route.

http://www.theguardian.com/books/video/201...y-digital-video

So, how are people making digital their libraries? This is a genuine question, you're not to assume I have the answer in resolvance to the thread title .lol.

Personally have no room for any more books and have to stop buying them but to be honest I'm not so keen on replacing a purchase of what would be a copy of a physical book with an ebook version... one of the main reasons for this and this is a warning to the digitally sympathetic amongst us is that a physical item has value, the more valuable society deems it the more it is likely to retain said value... a first edition print of a book by Vagrant Dreamer (for example) detailing information not so well known of prior to his study and undertaking will be worth X, years after the second and third editions are printed, the more rarefied that edition is, leather bound, gold leafed with hand drawn illustrations etc the more it is worth. A digital copy of this won't be worth a thing past its initial purpose as it can be cut and pasted, copied a thousand times it being digital and not physical. Same goes for peoples music collections which have devalued over time as formats change to enliven the art of consumerism.

Problem is in turning a physical library into a digital one... there has been a movement online, people attempting to distribute DIY book scanners as models so people can go about it but they're manual, in that it involves sitting next to the machine and turning each page individually, books being designed innately for use by human beings and not robots, page turning has to be one of the most fine tasks for a machine to pull off.

http://www.diybookscanner.org/

Did make me laugh. Consider it to be a contradictory effort, an attempt to modernize a source for ease of use, to bring the learned act of study forward to a technological edge gone about by sitting infront of a machine and turning pages one by one (IMG:style_emoticons/default/book.gif) as a camera scans/takes photos for you. As someone posted, 'I could have read it by now'. The effort is a well meaning one though, in particular as digitalizing books helps those in disadvantaged countries get access to texts for study, texts that can also be translated and read by computers for the heard of hearing. Important stuff that. As with advance a new culture is forming that seeks to mock and distance itself from the old, books are now being called, "dead tree editions" highlighting an eco-nomic pertinence but lacking a consideration of investment and value as aforementioned.

The only other way feasible for digitalizing an entire collection is to shear off the spine of the books and pass them through a scanner. Painful. Have considered it all the same, could perhaps glue the spine back on afterward.

Has anyone else considered digitalizing... is it worth handing your books in to a professional company who can do this?

http://www.wired.com/reviews/2013/06/1dollarscan/

$1 for 100 pages, worth it?

EDIT: They cut the spine off of the book, scan it and RECYCLE the pages. Not a service for Athena's handbound Enochian Grimiore. On hearing that I've decided the best way is to perhaps do the same but glue the spine back on to the pages afterwards... it was only on consideration of this that I noted that the, "dead tree edition" (DTE) would now only exist as some kind of tribute, a paper ornament... is not having a library worse than owning one just to showcase books as the owner reads an IPad instead? Is odd.

How is the art of occult study moving forward?

Peace
/M/

This post has been edited by Mchawi: Aug 14 2013, 06:07 PM

So, how are people making digital their libraries? This is a genuine question, you're not to assume I have the answer in resolvance to the thread title .lol.

Personally have no room for any more books and have to stop buying them but to be honest I'm not so keen on replacing a purchase of what would be a copy of a physical book with an ebook version... one of the main reasons for this and this is a warning to the digitally sympathetic amongst us is that a physical item has value, the more valuable society deems it the more it is likely to retain said value... a first edition print of a book by Vagrant Dreamer (for example) detailing information not so well known of prior to his study and undertaking will be worth X, years after the second and third editions are printed, the more rarefied that edition is, leather bound, gold leafed with hand drawn illustrations etc the more it is worth.

The only other way feasible for digitalizing an entire collection is to shear off the spine of the books and pass them through a scanner. Painful. Have considered it all the same, could perhaps glue the spine back on afterward.

Has anyone else considered digitalizing... is it worth handing your books in to a professional company who can do this?

$1 for 100 pages, worth it?
Peace
/M/

I have a huge digital collection, over 5000 books on half a TB of disk space. I also have about 100 books in my alter room. The physical copies are the books I read most often and find it easier to flip from bookmarked pages than to wait for my computer to boot and scroll though them. I often have several books open at once with my note book and drawing pad sometimes. When I am researching a spell or some cross system correspondence I can have a space a large diameter as I am tall. I scan many of the books I read and find once you get good at it takes only a few days to a week. About as long as it took to read it. I use no fancy scanners but I get very good quality PDF's.

I use both print and digital copies, but the physical book is a talisman that picks up energy as you use it. Some scriptures are even worshiped as deities in some schools of Buddhism so close is the link between a text and the thing it describes. I book anchors in the physical the god/thing described.

Sorry... wrote a response to this and my laptop decided to restart on me, found a program that allows you to take photos of a book while you turn the pages, it then processes those images editing out where your hand is while bringing the text and images to an enlivened focus.. the other models I had a laugh at involve building a kit that raises the book toward a glass plate or visa versa, drops a glass plate and camera toward the open book while the operator turns the pages for each photo to convert into a digital file. Tedious as it involves too much mechanical operation and expense by way of money and time whereas this program I managed to find and subsequently loose lets you set a camera to take photos with a timed function leaving you free to turn the pages fairly quickly, still a bit tedious I suppose, wouldn't chance going through 'a Garden of Pomegranates' with it but its an option, did have several bad reviews for it as its probably an initial development.

Agree that you can't beat the organized chaos of working with paper, ones library ends up reflecting on its user in that way, rushed notes, folded corners, worn pages... its all something someone can follow if need be and can even add value to ones collection if the owner is a successful occultist as those notes and clues become useful in guiding others as per John Dee's undertakings. The Minority Report style many applications are taking with the swipes and gestures is an attempt to replicate the fluidity of that organized chaos but its not repeatable digitally by way of its very purpose.