There have been a few posts about this question in areas that are partialy off topic, so it makes sense to start a single thread here.

You can share a scanner on a network, as well as over the Internet, between Windows computers by using RemtoeScan software that has just been released from

This is useful for WIFI Internet Cafes where there may be a scanner back behind the counter where customers do not go, but which they opperate from their own laptops, importing/aquiring directly from the scanner into their graphic programs.

Hope this helps.