Imagine that YOU had the power, at YOUR fingertips, to select a book from a rare or special collection (or any public-domain out-of-print book) and have it digitized, printed, and sent directly to you.

Library collections may contain hundreds, thousands, or in some cases, millions, of books. The following takes place when a book is available for digitization and you purchase a printed copy of that book:

• The book is pulled from the library's shelf by a librarian
• The book is scanned in a non-destructive manner and returned to the shelf
• The scanned images are cleaned up
  • Background is removed (yellowing, speckles, tears, etc.)
  • The text is centered both horizontally and vertically
  • The contrast is adjusted for printing a like-new copy
• A print-on-demand version of the book is created
• The text is OCRed (Optical Character Recognition)
• A searchable document is created for online viewing and download
• The print-on-demand book is sent to a printer for just-in-time printing
• The newly printed book is shipped to you

This process may take between 1 to 3 weeks depending on the availability of the book. From that point forward, the book is available for immediate download and 3-5 day printing.