Figure 8. video clip of Janine's combined use of Google and Amazon databases.

This video clip illustrates how Janine uses Amazon together with Google to find a source for her research. Rather than simply an online shopping location, Amazon becomes for Janine one among many search engines--one with particular affordances that make it a productive tool for certain research tasks. In this case, Amazon provides access to recently written books on the history of the typewriter--a function important for Janine because she does research regarding how analyzing older technologies can provide a lens through which we can better understand current new media technologies. Current sources that explore cutting-edge technologies in relation to older ones, then, are particularly useful for Janine. So rather than retrieving products Janine will buy, Amazon retrieves discrete bits of information that Janine then uses in Google--in this case, to search for additional sources by Victor M. Linoff, one of the authors she found in Amazon. What is key here is the notion that multiple tools, remediated to serve new purposes, play an integrated role in helping Janine find sources.

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