IANAL (though even if I were a lawyer, I think I'd say I wasn't just for being able to type "ANAL" in all caps like that
) but in the USA, the decision in RIAA vs. Diamond held that it is legal for consumers to "space-shift" media that they own, by copying it into another format. So it would be perfectly legal for you to scan and OCR the books to make e-books for yourself.
But it still wouldn't be legal (AFAIK) for you to
download those books and save yourself all that time and effort. Silly laws.