A media scanner (200) scans information disposed on a media (214) such as a business card or envelope. The media scanner (200) requires no moving parts and may be incorporated in a portable, hand held, battery powered information handling system such as an electronic address book or personal digital assistant. The scanner includes a scanning element such as a linear CCD (210) element for scanning the information stored on the medium, which is converted into a graphical image or text file. As the medium is fed past the scanning element, a detector detects the movement of the medium as the medium is fed through the scanner. Any variation of the movement of the medium, for example due to inconsistent movement or pausing caused by hand scanning, etc., is detected by detector (212), and scanning is executed according to the detected movement so that optimal scanning is maintained. The accommodation of the varying movement of the medium past the scanning element thereby minimizes or eliminates any errors or artefacts in the resulting scanned information (e.g., skewing) that would otherwise be caused by variable scanning movement. The detector may include an array of light detecting elements such as photodiodes or phototransistors, light detecting resistors, etc. such that light blocked from the array by the medium may be detected as a movement signal proportional to the movement of the medium. The detector may be utilized to determine the rate (relative scanning) or the position (absolute scanning) of the medium during scanning.