Scanning book tables of contents: a preliminary report on costs and procedures

This is an initial report on a pilot project to assess the costs associated with scanning some monograph tables of contents (TOCs) and the value of the TOC enhancement to their subject accessibility in the online catalog. Funded in part with grant monies from the US Department of Education Title VI program, this project study was first presented in a poster session at the ALA’s 1999 annual meeting in New Orleans. Examines the reasons for the study, procedures used, simple and complex costs associated with the work, and problems encountered. Concludes that TOC scanning may be worthwhile for well‐defined and valuable monograph collections, but probably too costly for a whole library or any loosely defined collection