Sharing a scanner in SOHO ?

I have a small office at the house and an ethernet network. Windows NT server (SP6a) and Win XP pro workstations. I would like to share a single scanner between all four workstations and I'm looking for a solution.

We rarely need to copy or fax hard copy documents or graphics but some times we need to scan in one or both of these. We have some heavy printing requirements so "all-in-one" devices are not realistic and we have invested.

My "perfect" solution would be to plug a network cable into the back of a scanner have it be available like one of the printers. OK - so it doen't seem to exist but are there other nearly equivalent solutions? Physical space makes having the scanner connected to only one PC inconvenient (but we are doing it now). Any ideas would be welcome. TIA

 

Scanner output has to go to a target PC for processing.

You have to walk to the scanner to present the source material or input. Then walk back to the computer to observe the relative success of the operation or output. Then walk back to the scanner to remove the source material or input. Better the scanner should be located near to the target PC.

The cost of having two or more users of a scanner typically indicates the purchase of another scanner for another user, or the purchase of a dedicated workstation for the scanner at a publically shared location.

 

Sharing a scanner is possible. You can already do it in Linux. The key is to use SANE instead of TWAIN. SANE development for Win32 is now in progress. For some links, see question 2.15 at http://www.xs4all.nl/~ljm/SANE-faq.html#21