Community Corner

Scan to Your SmartPhone in No Time

East Hampton Library adds free system that allows scans to be immediately sent to phone, GoogleDocs, email or USB drive.

has added a new device that lets the public scan documents, and best of all it's free.

The new device, set up at the library last week, also makes uploading scanned documents simpler than ever.

The touch-screen monitor allows users to chose where they'd like the scanned document to go; a USB drive, directly to GoogleDocs (if you have a Gmail account), as an attachment in an email, or even to your SmartPhone.

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To upload to a SmartPhone, you can use any Quick Response (QR) Code reader and then scan the barcode on the monitor. An application made for reading the black-and-white, pixelated, postage-size designs can be downloaded for free from the internet. The scanned document is sent directly to your phone then.

The library is the first one in Suffolk County and only the second on Long Island to receive such a device, according to the library executive director Dennis Fabiszak.

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He heard about the availability of the device last month at the Long Island Library Conference, which had partnered with ScanEx for the scan-to-phone and scan-to-GoogleDocs feature.

"A lot of places are adding it and charging per scan, like they do with a copy machine. We want people to come in and use things. We don't see any reason to charge for it. All it cost us is the electric," Fabiszak said, adding, "We don't have a fax for the public. We're hoping and trying to encourage people to email and scan things instead of faxing."

Library users may use the device to scan in pages or covers of books or bring in documents they may need to scan from home.

The system allows you to crop and rotate the images scanned. There's a sheet-feeder for scanning multiple pages. It can also make the document a searchable PDF by converting the images to text through Optical Character Recognition technology.

And, it takes just moments to scan and upload to your email, GoogleDocs, phone or USB drive.

The library received the new software for free, as it was one of the first libraries that wanted it. CCP Solutions provided the scanner.

Would you use this device? Tell us in the comments section below.


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