The tour was very informative. Kirtas Technologies started in 2001, began to produce high end digital scanners and as a result of their testing process they found an opportunity for doing business. Currently it has a contract deal with Microsoft to scan books using the fastest robotic scanners. I was surprised when I heard it scans up to 2400 pages per hour (on average 8 mins per book). After scanning each book, the pages are double checked and made corrections to enhance quality of the image. This makes Kirtas Technologies unique when compared to what Google is currently doing. Currently Microsoft is digitalizing thousands of books published before 1923 from Cornell Library. These books are in the public domain and they will be freely available on the web soon. I was impressed by the new concept model scanners (fully automated), which could eliminate the labor cost .