At that time full-page flatbed scanners did exist. These are the ones that look and work like photocopiers. Flatbed scanner prices have dropped since then, and drastically. For example, the full-page flatbed scanner in my office now is a Visioneer PaperPort 3100b that will scan over 1 million colors in really fine detail. Image-editing software lets you do basic adjustments to your images.
Some scanners come with slide adapters or negative adapters.
These are great if you've got the last ten years of youth ministry stuff on slide-projector carousels or tucked away in photo negative sleeves. You can also get an overhead adapter. This is useful if you work with overhead transparencies, which confuse scanners. Look back at the Geek-friendly definition and think about how an overhead transparency works. Adding a scanner to your computer is relatively painless.