Earlier this month I presciently looked up and checked out the only non-reserve copy of a book that was required for one of my upcoming courses. Then, a few days ago, I got the dreaded but by now familiar recalled email, prompted by someone else's request (doubtlessly someone else in my class who is just now getting around to reading the syllabus). I've got to return the book by the 28th, and I'm miffed about it. However, today I discovered three gigantic, conspicuous machines on the main floor of UT's PCL library shooting beams of light at open books: “Knowledge Imaging Center” (KIC) stand-up copiers. You just place your reading material face-up on this foamy surface and these bad boys will scan both pages in ~5 seconds, storing them as separate files; then turn the page, hit scan, and repeat… that means I can scan a 300 page book to image files in 12.5 minutes! Once you've finished scanning, you're given the option of emailing the files or copying them to portable storage. I thought it was great!
On a completely different and unrelated note, here's a view of Lake Wanaka from the Rippon Winery; photography (c) Lindsay Woodward.