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First of all, you'll have to chop down the book spines. And doing so will always (and I mean ALWAYS!) leave rough edges, which in turn will stick to the sensor and internal mechanics. It will ruin the book. If you try to put Humpty Dumpty back together again with epoxy resin and band aids whatever... it just won't be same.
If you already have a digital camera (8 MP will suffice), visit diybookscanner.org for some ideas. Heck, for that money you could probably get two second hand 10 MP cameras, wall charger and all.
I have a rather cheap flatbed scanner and it does the job well, especially for OCR-ing. So far I've scanned over 20 college books from my personal collection, ~300 pages each and it still has 14 months or so left of warranty in case it breaks down or something. Can't imagine how you'll get the covers to fit (and curl) through one of those "portable" scanners.
Why do you need portability anyway? Can't get any more portable than a digital camera. Perhaps even your mobile phone, at least for some books. That is, if it has at least a 3.0 MP sensor.
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