AquaBrowsing

My local library has an AquaBrowser. It’s a search tool created just for library database catalogs. AquaBrowser works just like a standard search tool – type in a traditional text query box, and the browser returns results listed by relevance.

My favorite part is the “word cloud” – a visual, mind map-like animation of word associations related to the area of interest. The AquaBrowser compares a search term to metadata in the catalog, and then new, discovery-based information appears to help refine the search. The word cloud includes the most relevant associations, foreign language translations, spelling variations, and synonyms.