It's easier to scan or photograph loose sheets than a bound book. If you want to do it fast it's much easier to cut the pages out of the bindings.

Generally: unbinding the leaves of a book so that they can be more easily handled by a scanner, often including an automated feeder.

The simplest method is to simply cut off the binding (a powered paper cutter can do this in an instant).

The alternative is nondestructive scanning, where the binding and publication as a whole remain intact. This is typically performed using flatbed scanners, angled scanners (the book is either face up or face down on a scanning bed which typically forms a ~90 degree angle), automated feeders which incorporate page turning (via numerous methods), or face-up scanning with digital deconvolution of page distortions. Higher speed presents higher risks of both poor / missed scans, and damaging original materials. Methods should be tuned to the materials, their intrinsic value and/or uniqueness, and end goals.

See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_scanning#Destructive_scan...

There are numerous book-scanning projects with YouTube videos of their methods. Typical rates range from ~300 -- 3,000 pages/hour, with 1,000 pp/hr being a good middling rate.

DIY 1,000 pp/h

https://youtube.com/watch?v=ne-h7FTMZBk

https://youtube.com/watch?v=RdLcrNeWjIs

Commercial, manual page turning:

https://youtube.com/watch?v=adQjU9JAWfw

3,000 pp/h vacuum page turning

https://youtube.com/watch?v=cmhIJOqepVU

... capable of managing very thick volumes:

https://youtube.com/watch?v=SdipuAuWsEs

Google fully automated linear scanbot:

https://youtube.com/watch?v=4JuoOaL11bw

Face-up, no-platten, with deconvolution:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=iAmrch_1f2U

They destroyed the books to scan them. They cut the pages to send them to a scanner, and discarded them afterwards. It was a horrible tragedy.

Indeed, the book scanning project at Google at one point involved removing the spine of a book with a bandsaw, then scanning the loose pages.

For fun, they collected the sawed-off spines and glued them to boards fashioned to look like bookcases. The office looked like a library, but there were no books on the "shelves," only spines.