It has been a few years since I was there but as I recall the Wisconsin Historical Society has a set of imagers that are specifically for books--to protect bending the binding too much.  You actually place the book upright in a cradle type contraption so that the binding is not stressed.  I do not know the brand name but I am sure that if you contact them they would give you the information.  
 
As a side note...they also just recently created an educational program and imaged thousands of pages for the web.  I think the site is www.americanjourneys.org .  For anyone interested in American History, young and old, it is a very enjoyable resource. 
 
Becca

________________________________

From: Museum discussion list on behalf of Ruiz, Meredith
Sent: Wed 1/5/2005 8:33 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Scanning Books



You may want to contact a university library that does
Interlibrary-Loan, also known as ILL. I used to work in that department
and they would use this huge machine to make digital copies of
old/fragile books and oversized documents. I think the program was
ARIEL. I just did a quick search for a scanner that has the
specifications you may need and came up with the PS 7000 scanner from
Minolta. I am sure there are lots of different ones out there, but at
least this is a starting point.

Meredith

Date:    Tue, 4 Jan 2005 18:53:56 EST
From:    David Lewias <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: Looking for scanner to scan books face up

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Kathy --

The Morton Arboretum (here IL) scans a large number of dried plant
specimens
and needed the same device as you described.   When they couldn't find
anything commercially available they created a solution in-house!   They
built an
ingenious little stand (four legs) that literally holds their scanner
upside down
above their desktop.   They then place the plant specimen on the
scanners
lid, hold the lid "up" (closed) with some bungie-type cords, and "vola!"
Press
the scan button.   -- Apparently scanners will work just fine
upside-down --
who-woulda-think-it!?   *gin*

Although it's a nifty idea, (and one in which I'm eager to try with my
own
scanner when digitizing large fragile maps) -- it seems to me, this
won't help
much with the "broken binding" issues.   What about using a digital
camera and
a copy-stand?

- David -
David Lewis, Curator
Aurora Regional Fire Museum
www.AuroraRegionalFireMuseum.org

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