Yeah, but ask your father (or more realistically, anyone who has a book collection) if they'd trade all of their physical books for a kindle. The answer will almost alway be no, because there is a reason they've lugged those books around with them every time they've changed houses or gone on trips, because the physical artifact means something to them, and a eBook isn't going to cut it.

I wouldn't be so sure about that. My own physical book collection is a shadow of its former self, as I've scanned and tossed the rest.

I can't ask my dad anything anymore as he has Alzheimer's, but he had given me his book collection and I've been scanning them, too. (Of course I don't cut up the sentimental treasures, but there are only a handful of those.)

Also, years ago, he got low vision and couldn't read comfortably anymore. If it was today, I would set up a projector to throw the pdf pages on the wall so he could keep reading.

Unless they were DRMed and the provider had gone out of business, or cut off his access for other reasons, or...

In general, I don't buy DRMed books that I want to keep long term for just that reason.

I buy the physical book, cut the back off, scan it to a pdf and throw the book into the recycling bin.

Are you opposed to the DRM-stripping tools available? Buying a Kindle book and running it through Calibre seems like an easier route to take than scanning the physical book.

On the book scanning note though, do you have a special book scanner? I've never seen one outside of professional shops and turning the pages seems like a ginormous hassle.

You're right that using a flatbed scanner is simply unworkable for books.

I use a Fujitsu fi-5120C hopper-fed scanner (does both sides at once) and a QCM-8200M stack slicer. Those make short work of most books. The Fujitsu scanner software includes an OCR. I scan at 400dpi. If a page gets messed up, I use pdftk to merge in corrected scans.

I also use it to scan in small mountains of old tax records and documents I had stuffed everywhere.

The odd thing is I've come to prefer the pdf images, as they look like a book page (!). This works out great on ereaders with larger screens like the Kindle DX, or the Kobo Aura which has an HD eink display.

The regular Kindle is a bit squinty with a paperback sized PDF, but I bought some dimestore reading glasses which helps wit dat.

Sounds like having both is a good hedge against failures with either one.