In October 2006, Clare County Library was one of two library services asked to assist Talis, our library system software suppliers, in trials of a new library catalogue interface called Aquabrowser, Islington Public Library being the other library.

Clare County Library contributes to the Talis Platform and is delighted to be able to offer this highly innovative interface with extraordinary new features to our members as a result of this partnership between ourselves, Talis and Medialab (developers of the actual software).

Aquabrowser has a 'cloud' subject/keyword association on the left and a 'drill-down' function on the right, as well as a standard search function in the middle. The word cloud on the left is built from several sources:

The latter are kept for a single user session and only the last three or four are displayed for clarity.
Click here for more details.

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This new service is available because Talis and Medialab Solutions, creators of the AquaBrowser application, have agreed a new Platform partnership. Both Talis and Medialab have been driving technical and business innovation to help libraries expose their data silos, to easily integrate disparate systems and deliver next generation solutions that are rich, engaging, participative and economically attractive. Talis is developing an open software platform and Medialab has introduced AquaBrowser Online which is one of the first ‘software as a service’ applications to be available to the global library market. The agreement enables Medialab to take advantage of the platform’s APIs to enable any library that contributes its catalogue to the Talis Platform to take advantage of the AquaBrowser Online service. As well as Medialab becoming a Talis Platform partner, the two companies will collaborate on new features that will enable easier and seamless integration with leading ILS applications, enhanced search and indexing technologies, and data visualisation. Dave Errington, Talis CEO commented, “I am delighted to be working with the AquaBrowser team who share our culture of business and technology innovation. We are both pursuing a more visionary, inclusive, and longer term strategy designed to lower the cost and technical barriers to innovation, offering radical new solutions all libraries and indeed software vendors in the library automation world." Medialab CEO Bastiaan Zwaan commented, “Through our partnership we enable any library with a catalogue supported by the Talis Platform to sign up for the AquaBrowser Online catalogue search service. We stand behind the philosophy of the Talis Platform concept and that is why it is one of the first ILS platforms we already support at the launch of AquaBrowser Online.” For additional information about this partnership or to find out how to get involved contact paul.miller@talis.com.