I am looking for a fast flatbed consumer level scanner (without an
ADF) for the purpose of copying documents (from BOUND pages from
magazines and books) and later putting them through  OCR .

The overriding criteria is text scanning SPEED (at 300dpi, A4 size,
black and white text).  I would like to get the fastest in a sub$200
scanner.

Photo scanning speed is not important.  (Good photo scanning quality
will be a plus.)

Other extras are not important.

I already have a good document scanner with an automatic document
feeder (Kodak i40) for free A4 size sheets.

I already have a good OCR program (ReadIris 8 Corporate) so the
accompanying OCR software is unimportant.

I could not get any comparative  figures on scanning speeds between
the common brands and models and would like some help.

I'm actually interested in the same issue. From what I have found so
far Canon seems to make good cheap scanners. Also while not 100%
indicative of the scanning speed, I believe a fast interface (i.e USB
2.0) is a good sign of a fast scanner. After all transfer speed is
really important and the more data you can get across the better.
Since you want something below $200 I think that pretty much narrow it
down to a more manageable set. Try googling for the specs of USB 2.0
scanners. Sorry for not being able to be more specific. Keep me posted
on how things turn out.

i have about 12 scanners that we use for ocr'ing.

usb 2.0 vs 1.1 won't make a difference with text scanning (our usb 1.1
scanners are faster than our usb 2.0 scanners).

your key need is to get a scanner that scans fast and has good
software. the epson 1200 and 1240 were great. unfortunately, they
don't make them anymore. i recently bought an epson 2580 and was very
underwhelmed by it--it is slower than our 1200 and 1240's and i didn't
like the software as much and it is kind of noisy. i also bought an
plustek optibook 3600. its okay but it is also over your $200 price
range.

pc world's web page has a top 10 scanner list and in the detailed
info, tells you how fast each scanner was with ocr/300dpi scanning.