An all day affair

This is the project we worked on all day today.  It is a comprehensive index for Hancock County Court.  Under each alphabet letter there are combinations under which the entries were made.  E. G.  for the Markham name, it would appear under the letter M of course, but then you would look  for it under Ma.  For Milne, you would look for it under Mi and the writer would follow the Mi with the rest of the letters if it was the first entry or write it in full if it was one of a number of names starting with Mi.  Rather like a telephone book listing.
this book is 800 pages and we are having to do it single page - i.e. left/right capture.  We digitize the left page first all the way through to the back and then go back to the beginning and digitize the right hand page.  The program is designed to leave a space for the right hand page as you go through for the first time.
Yesterday we did a few other books and started on this one and had 25 pages done before it was time to go home.  Today we finished the left hand pages through 800 and then began the right hand pages and are up to 400.  It is arduous work and we have to stop every  50 to 100 pages to refocus the camera.
Digitizing is not a walk in the park.  This book is 18 1/2 inches high by 10+ inches wide and almost 4 inches thick.  It is so big that we could not put it under the glass of the cradle to digitize it.  You can see the red level by the cradle and keyboard that we use to check if the page is sitting straight so that the camera can digitize the book.
We were so tired at 3.30 that we packed up and went home.  We took a nap (90 minutes or more).  There are times when it is good to take naps.