As a favor, I agreed to archive, through photos, the hand-written meeting minute books of a lodge going back over 200 years. The book bindings were falling apart, but fortunately, the pages, themselves, were in great shape. The books were the meeting minutes of a local lodge and were in danger of being damaged (the lodge just had some flooding and didn't want the books to get wet or suffer from some other damage). I didn't really know what I was getting myself into, but after some experimentation and research, I found a process that worked well. 

In this image, you can see how I set things up. Each book was laid open on a short table with a piece of plexiglass on it to hold the pages flat -- one side or other of the book was propped-up with some padded mailers to help with that. The camera was placed on a tripod directly above the book facing down with a 35mm prime lens. Connected to the camera was a PocketWizard to fire the shutter and another one attached to the table with a thumb button to activate it. Also attached to the camera was a small screen (via HDMI cable) so I could see the shot after I took it. Placed on either side were 2 lights in large softboxes -- these were angled so there was no reflection in the plexiglass showing up on the photo. I used some white gloves to handle the books. The camera settings were usually: ISO 200, f/8.0, 1/250 sec

The process was to lay open the book (under the plexiglass) to the first page, fire, review the shot, lift up the plexiglass, turn the page, and repeat. I did this around 1,500 times. I then imported them into Lightroom, and made adjustments to exposure, contrast, highlights, and shadows -- this depended on the kind of paper and ink used in the book as different combinations worked for different setups. Occasionally, I used the clone stamp or healing brush when something got in the way on the page.  I then exported them as JPG's and PDF'd them into one file for each book. There were 7 books going back more than 200 years. 

The results were amazing. Everything turned out great and the books can now be read without actually opening them and risking any damage. 

If you're wondering, the actual meeting minutes were pretty boring -- the Date and Location of the meeting, who was there, any money spent or received, and a very general summary of what happened. But one of the most amazing moments was the below page. On the left side, is the meeting for April 1861 -- on the right, May 1865. This was the length of the Civil War on two pages (this lodge was "dark" during the war). If you're interested, there are some incredible stories about Masons during the Civil War -- I recommend "The Better Angles of our Nature" by Michael A. Halleran.