Reddit reviews Fujitsu ScanSnap S1500 Instant PDF Sheet-Fed Scanner for PC

I found a shortcut to this either on tv or reddit comment I don't really remember. This will ruin the book so sell the digital copy accordingly. You also need a scanner that works on a feed system aka ADF like a fax machine (rather than a slow flatbed ) but beware of low end ones which are more trouble than they are worth. This does 40PPM which means 1000 page book in under 30 minutes. Put the book on a table clamp and use an angle grinder to grind off the binding don't forget to get goggles to keep paper out of your eyes. Take the covers off and feed the pages. Looking at the price of the materials startup at 500 is costly which could be cut down by buying a cheaper scanner to 300 or finding someone who already owns one which would cut the cost down to <50$. Of course if you already have all the materials what the hell are you waiting for. If not you could or could not use the amazon links provided to do this.

It's pricey but I picked up a Fujitsu ScanSnap S1500. Best thing ever. Everything gets scanned and backed up to cloud storage. Original thrown away unless it is some sort of special document like a car title which goes in a filing cabinet.

My desk went from a sea of paper to empty. Highly recommend.

Depending on confidentiality concerns, you could outsource the scanning or grab something like this Fujitsu Scan feeder or similar.

Cloud storage is iffy when the service gets cancelled, there might not be the option to retrieve your files. A good mantra is "If your data is not in 3 separate places, it's nowhere."

1. Local
   
2. Cloud
   
3. Offsite
   
   Perhaps something like Bittorrent Sync to simplify the local + offsite.

Ah, I see. Well good on you for thinking of your residents then.

Another post reminded me: my department had a pretty nice scanner, the ScanSnap S1500. Another department in the building had their students scan homework. They also had a scanner, but their students always came to our lab to scan homework because our scanner was far, far superior in usability and scan quality. I realize it's pretty expensive for what it sounds like your budget is, but definitely go for that over anything that isn't of academic value - buy whiteboards first, then the scanner, then a dvd of Real Genius (trust me on this one), and then whatever else you have in mind.

There are a few new organizations building applications and infrastructure for digitizing archaeological data. As HappyArchFunTime said, check out the forthcoming Codifi app from the Center for Digital Archaeology (http://codifi.org/) and the FAIMS app/db system (https://www.fedarch.org/).

In the short term though, I'd suggest scanning the field notes so you at least have images of them, and linking the images to the database records. I use a ScanSnap S1500 scanner (http://www.amazon.com/Fujitsu-ScanSnap-Instant-Sheet-Fed-Scanner/dp/B001V9LQH0/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1409886865&sr=8-3&keywords=scansnap+s+1500) to quickly scan separated pages, but you can also cheaply build a book scanner with a cardboard box and a digital camera to scan bound notes (http://www.diybookscanner.org/). While you can use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software to extract text from the notes, I've found it doesn't work very well with handwriting - transcription of fieldnotes is better left to humans at this point.

Going forward, you might suggest that the excavators start recording digital while still in the field to avoid the data entry time. The fastest way to "go digital" at this point is to import use Filemaker Pro ($300) and run a mobile version of the database on iPads. John Walldrodt has some great demonstrations from the multiuser database he built for recording in Pompeii (http://paperlessarchaeology.com/the-database/). FileMaker can handle most data, so you should be able to import your current database into it. This is a significant task though, so I'd recommend waiting until the field season is over and then testing the mobile database before next year.

If you just want to try digital recording immediately, and only need to support a few users, try the MementoDB app (android https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.luckydroid.droidbase&hl=en) or TapForms (iOS https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/tap-forms-organizer-secure/id291405311?mt=8) as they are very simple to get up and running, but more limited in what they can do vs FileMaker.

Once you have digital datasets, consider talking to the Digital Archaeological Record (http://core.tdar.org/) which is focused on archiving data for future access and OpenContext - which is built to publish data sets (http://opencontext.org/about/) to see about preserving and sharing data with other professional archaeologists.

[Edit - model # and link for scanner]