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CopiBook Review

Someone asked me to provide some feedback about some equipment I had used. After I sent him a reply, he suggested I put this information on the blog. So, I’ll put this out there.

This review is for the I2I CopiBook from Iimage Retrieval.

Performance
The Scanner performs wonderfully. It has an artificial limit of 300 DPI, but can go up to 380 DPI (once the software is upgraded). The color is very accurate. We’ve been happy using the CopiBook for books, and for maps. I know people that are using it for newspapers as well and I would not hesitate to use it for newspapers as well.

Marketing
I actually bought the machine based on a recommendation from someone else, so I never saw the machine marketed. The machine is well made, and works wonderfully with ambient light as long as there is no overhead lights. It works off of ambient light better than some lighted machines. I know that Iimage Retrieval is selling some extra lights to buy with the equipment if a suitable location can’t be found. We’ve never needed the extra lights.

I’ve trained undergraduate students to use the machine in 10 minutes or less. It’s very easy to operate and gives us enough options to scan many different kinds of items.

Reliability
The scanner has been extremely reliable and not troublesome at all. The color scanning is quick. The times on the website are accurate as far as I can tell.

Problems
We’ve had the machine for about a year now and we have only had one problem. The machine wouldn’t turn on, but it was because the power strip was faulty and it had nothing to do with the equipment. Even though it had nothing to do with the equipment, IImage Retrieval sent us with an extra power supply just in case.

When we bought the equipment, I asked about what happens if it broke, the vender said said that if something was going to break it might be the camera (which doesn’t happen that often), but if it did they would just send a new camera. I could uninstall the old camera and install the new one myself. They also mentioned that IF the glass breaks (the large glass plate), they would just send a new one out. The glass is very thick, and I’ve never had a problem with it.

Customer Service
Even though the problem ended up not being the machine at all, they still gave me quick customer service and got a part to me very quickly.

Would you get another?
Most certainly.

Options you wish you had gotten?
We got the color model with the glass plate, which I would highly suggest getting. We were cautious about getting the glass plate (because we didn’t think we needed it), but after using the machine to scan books, I’m glad we got the plate.

Other Reactions
I will say that of all the equipment in our lab, the CopiBook is one of the easiest to use, one of the most reliable, and the most versatile. The Auto crop option works really well (it will automatically crop by detecting the size of the page). The curvature correction for the gutter of books is amazing. Our library owns a BookEye (for ILL) and six Kic Scanners, and I would choose the CopiBook over them, even though the Kic Scanners are cheaper. I’ve seen a Zeutschel 14000 series, and the way the owners talked about it, it sounded like they thought it was a lot of trouble. They only used it some of the time, and only for really high quality stuff.

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