Creating a personal digital library

 Overview

It is admirable to have your own collection in your home office or at your university residence for reference or for personal reading. Imagine having access to your favorite book any time you get a chance to read a few pages, whether you are on a bus, taxi, or train. Get some free space in your room by selling your old books! No worries about losing the information, digitize your books and store them in your computer or external hard drive, or even cloud storage for easy access. 

Digitization process

Registering. you will obviously need to keep a record of your book before selling it. you will need software like Microsoft Access to create your own database, but if you have limited computer skills, Excel will do the trick. Include all the relevant details about the book, ISBN, Author, Title, Publisher, Place, Year, etc. 

Scanning. after capturing full details of the book scanning must begin. you do not necessarily need sophisticated software to perform a scan. Your phone camera and a light room will do. you will require scanning software that will allow you to create a document out of your scanned images. I have created a short video, using Microsoft Lens, to demonstrate how to scan a document.

You can do this process to as many books as you need to, journals, photos, and newspapers can be digitized too!!

Like you would do in a physical library, it is important to sort and arrange your material in an easily accessible manner. you can save your content in folders and links for easy retrieval. 

This was a small demonstration for a simple private library collection, Specialized software and hardware for scanning and storage is required when creating a much bigger digital library. Share your comments on digitalization.