book scanning (was: DEC Direct Sales Catalog)

Dave Caroline wrote: I agree certain documents should not be destroyed; I have scanned some books one page at a time myself. However, that doesn't usually apply -- most manuals aren't *that* rare. Scanning the book and making it available also has value, and often more than the value of the complete, intact book. Personally I'm much less worried about the loss of value than I am about copyright issues. There are things I have scanned which I haven't put online. I could certainly work harder to acquire permission to post what I do. 90% of my scanning doesn't have such approval, although I'm fairly comfortable that the copyright holder isn't concerned. (How do I know the latter? I've been contacted by some of the principals of Processor Technology who said: "nice work", but I don't have a piece of paper with a lawyers signature on it. Getronics bought up Wang a decade ago, and while they haven't given me any legal document, the fact that they shipped me a pallet of documents, floppies, and equipment for the cost of shipping after seeing my website should count for something.) Dave, not to be snippy, but I am not sure where the punctuation goes above. Let me guess. Did I get it right? Why should the catalog predate the scanning? It isn't obvious to me. At what point do you decide your catalog is done and start scanning then? Personally, I scan when I have something to scan and I have the time. If I waited for the "right" time nothing would ever be scanned. Some of my docs: http://www.sol20.org/manuals.html http://www.sol20.org/articles.html http://www.wang2200.org/docs.html http://www.thebattles.net/bondwell/bondwell.html http://www.thebattles.net/sage/sage.html http://www.thebattles.net/oddments/oddments.html http://www.thebattles.net/wang/3300.html I have a couple more sites with corresponding documents, but they aren't online yet.