linux book scanner

I'm looking to scan a reasonable number (100's) of books (legally).
I've got an opticbookplus scanner, but it's slow and very hard on the books.

So I bought an old plenary/overhead camera book scanner. After a bunch
of diagnostic bills, turns out I was sold a dud . And new book
scanners are in the 10's of thousands.

I'm thinking I'd like to build a homejob book scanner. This seems like
it should be easily doable using an off the shelf digital camera or two.

Does anyone have any suggestions on how this could be done? Assuming I
can mount a camera on an overhead rack of some sort (I could probably
use that dud overhead scanner I bought ). Specifically, are there
any lower/mid cost cameras that would work well, and is there any
software that will allow me to control the camera from the keyboard. If
the software is linux, even better. So I hit the mouse, it snaps the
pages, I flip the page, hit the mouse, it snaps the next page. Mere
moments later I'm done the whole book .

I've started doing some research but the options are a bit overwhelming
as to where to even get started. So some gentle prods in the right
direction would be much appreciated.

 

Given the size (and speed in the appropriate reader) of SDHC cards those
days, you can scan a whole book on one card so I wouldn't make working
tethered a priority, if you can have a remote control and manual
settings. You may find useful to remove lens distortions and aberrations
by post-processing, which mean that the lens (or camera) should be known
to the appropriate software. A camera which takes external power may be
easier to use in long photo sessions.