> Has anyone on the Listserv used any equipment that can scan a book by
> turning pages. Rather than placing the book on a scanner? 

 Not in a commercial setting, but in a personal one. Results will definitely 
vary, depending on what you're trying to achieve.

I have old minute books that not only can't I because of there 
> condition, scan them on a conventional scanner, but I also have 
> to scan them at there location.

 While many will see this as heresy, the way this is usually done is to slit 
the binding of the books and then scan the pages individually. Naturally, 
you lose the archival status of the ledgers as a collection, but you will 
still have the materials, and could possibly have them re-sewn or bound if 
there's a desire to do so when the project is done. 

So I would need a portable , lightweight, scanner that can scan large
> book pages, store the data and upload it into a system for indexing
> and storage.

 Lots of up-front research needs to be done here. First, you need to ensure 
the scanning device (hardware) interfaces successfully with your computer 
system and operating environment. Then you need to determine the limitations 
of the capacity of the device, or if it feeds directly into an application 
from the source material. You'll also need to look at the software that 
comes with it, and what it actually does with the textual content... if it 
stores it as WYSIWYG or if it stores it in some manner that allows you to 
use OCR and/or manipulate the content in columnar form as data, etc. Most of 
all, you'd need to do some samples from the source documents to see if it 
will have ANY LEVEL of success, because as you well know, few programs are 
more than 50% successful with handwriting recognition, and even if they can 
start to "learn" a handwriting style, in minutes books, you will likely have 
a wide range of handwriting from any number of individuals over a period of 
years.
 Sounds like it could be a "cool" project... sounds like it might also be 
something worth attempting to qualify for a Grant to fund the work, if you 
can show it's enduring and/or historic value to the institution.
 Larry

List archives at http://lists.ufl.edu/archives/recmgmt-l.html
Contact [log in to unmask] for assistance