I love A9 as a search engine. Yes, I started using it because I get a discount on my Amazon.com purchases by using their toolbar. It uses Google’s database so I figured why not. What I have come to love about it is the ability to receive search results from multiple sources on a single page. Typically I have it perform a regular text search but also an Web image search and a Flickr search at the same time. I’m not always looking for pictures but the image results I get can sometimes make me think about my search and/or just give me a laugh. Today I got a laugh out of a search for nerd tv. I was just looking for the site’s URL but as the first Web image result I was presented with an image of Tom Baker as the Doctor being menaced by a Cyberman (right). Why this result appeared, I’m pretty sure I’ll never figure out.
Michael Sauers is currently the Director of Technology for Do Space in Omaha, NE. Michael has been training librarians in technology for the past twenty years and has also been a public library trustee, a bookstore manager for a library friends group, a reference librarian, serials cataloger, technology consultant, and bookseller since earning his MLS in 1995 from the University at Albany’s School of Information Science and Policy. Michael has also written dozens of articles for various journals and magazines and his fourteenth book, Emerging Technologies: A Primer for Librarians (w/ Jennifer Koerber) was published in May 2015 and more books are on the way. In his spare time he blogs at travelinlibrarian.info, runs The Collector’s Guide to Dean Koontz Web site, takes many, many photos, and typically reads more than 100 books a year.
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