When you have a pile of books that you want to take on holiday, there is an alternative to expensive excess luggage…
Electronic books are just made for travellers, but why buy a book or travel guide you already own? Enter Book2Bits, a company that can scan your books to be read on a Kindle, iPad or other form of e-reader. It costs from 77 cents for 100 pages – about $3 for a typical novel - or you can get a box full of books scanned for $99.
The catch is that you don’t get the original book back, as they have to be pulled apart for scanning and then shredded for copyright reasons, so it won’t be for everybody, or every book.
A good use would be scanning a travel guide you already own, rather than paying $20-plus to buy an electronic version. Another good use would be
scanning a pile of novels that you’re not fussed about keeping. The books come back to you as PDF files that can be read on a range of tablet devices.
The service is now available in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Hobart, Adelaide and Perth, and you can either take in or post your books, with the files said to come back within a week. The company says book scanning is legal as long as you own the book, you have not previously copied it and you do not sell or trade the file with anyone else.
This article is an excerpt from Jane E. Fraser’s weekly travel column in The Sun Herald, Sydney.
Great info! I wonder if a service like that (and just as affordable) is offered where I live? Will have to look into it.