FAQ

What is BookLiberator?

BookLiberator is a set of hardware plans for a machine that produces digital photos or scans of book pages. It is also software that turns those raw images into more usable (i.e. rotated and cropped) images and organized (i.e. ocr'd and formatted) text.

Where is BookLiberator?

Software development work is organized on Launchpad. Hardware development and documentation happens on this wiki. More generally, BookLiberator seems to be centered in NYC.

Who is BookLiberator?

Ian Sullivan dreamed up the hardware while xeroxing a book. James Vasile claimed the software would be easy and is paying for his hubris by actually writing it. Karl Fogel helps with distribution packaging and random stuff.

Why is BookLiberator?

There are a whole libraries of books that are no longer in print or won't make the digital leap. We don't want to lose them.

Also, books should be as easy to share as music and movies. CD rippers changed the relationship between people and music and changed the expectations about remixing and sharing that music. We can do that for books too!

What speed does the BookLiberator rip?

With no rushing we are getting from 600 to 1,000 pages an hour depending on what books are being ripped.

What licenses apply to BookLiberator?

The material in this wiki site is all published under a Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike license. Anything you submit for inclusion in this wiki will be released under that license.

The code in the BookLiberator software is all published under GNU General Public License, version 3 or later. Any material you submit for inclusion in BookLiberator software will be released under that license. BookLiberator includes a LICENSE file that contains other licenses that apply to bits and pieces of BookLiberator.

So far there is no licensing of the hardware. But to the extent hardware plans are published under the wiki, they are CC-By-SA.