I also cringed at the look of this. I have a bunch of old books I would like to digitize, and most bookscanners I come across require you to at least spread open the book completely, which would, as you say shred them... And they don't even involve vacuum, movement across sharp edges, and stepper motors...

Oooh.. Second question in https://linearbookscanner.org/faq/...

> Out of 50 books tested, 45% had one or two of their pages either torn or folded

I would not use this even on my less valuable books.