[ Matthew Caulfield wrote in 081108 MMDigest:

> All issues of the MTR have now been scanned, although that meant
> disbinding the volumes.

I wonder why these items were cut apart.  There are a number of
places where books and magazines can be scanned without destroying
them.  In fact, there is a company in Victor, New York (near Rochester)
that makes the premier machine which does just that.  It turns the
pages at an amazing rate and takes a photo of each page.  The cost
is minimal, less than a quarter per page.  They even have software to
do character recognition so that you can search the text.  Check out
http://www.kirtas.com/ 

The Rochester Public Library has scanned over 100 old and fragile
volumes of the city directory.  Recent volumes are about two inches
thick.  Now I can just sit here at home and look up information on my
computer.  I pick a year and an alphabetical section and click 'Enter'
and I get the full text of about 100 pages in about 30 seconds.

Many libraries all over the country have these machines and the service
is also available directly from the company.

Regards
Craig Smith