Monday, September 12, 2011

Will Miss #362 - super cheap book scanning service

Our service of choice, and the image I pinched from their web site. They have really served us well.

My husband and I have accumulated a lot of books since coming to Japan, and everyone knows how infamously small Japanese apartments are. My husband has a large collection of books that he cannot replace without going to great expense (special ordered from a limited run publisher that feels digital copies should cost just as much as print versions). In The U.S, there are a lot of book scanning services, but they charge about $12-15 per 250-page-book. In Japan, there are quite a few such services that charge a mere 100 yen ($1.20) per 350-page-book. The price is amazing, and depending on the agency, the service is as well. I've read that this is because the Japanese use an automatized process which originated in Korea which allows for fast work. All I care about is the fact that our large stash of books has been reduced to digital form for a very low price.

I'll miss the ability to get a book scanned for less than it takes to buy a bottle of soda.