However, there is a human tragedy here, for people who have done good work for us, and we want to help out.
If you don't want to, that's your prerogative.
I'm glad that you've scanned books and released them. Maybe scanners will become trivial; you might be right. They aren't there yet, though, and I feel like I owe these people a debt, to help.
I'm not telling you what to do or think. I'm just answering why I think there's more to the issue than that there could be a centralized storage, and that in the future maybe it gets easier to do.
Sometimes when there's a fire you just put some money in the hat to help, buddy. It's more about compassion than anything.
Also I scanned a lot of books myself, and scanners can easily go trivial over the next decade.
http://www.diybookscanner.org/ http://diybookscanner.eu/
And humans may even be not that necessary anymore http://www.lib.umich.edu/events/automatic-book-scanning-desi...