The National Library of Australia has launched the beta of their new search interface, SBDS Prototype (SBDS stands for Single Business Discovery Service, I think), and the search experience is not only better than any other library-related search I have used, it is faster than most of them as well!

Other reactions:

• Roy Tennant at LibraryJournal.comt
• Roy Tennant at HangingTogether.org
• Lorcan Demsey (1)
• Lorcan Demsey (2)

This is an excellent example of what is possible today, and what we should all strive for in our search interfaces.  There is such a diversity of resources, and unifying these into a usable and fast single-search service is a credit to the developers at the National Library of Australia.

Specifically, Bowker has bought the company that owns AquaBrowser.

Bowker, best known for publishing Books In Print, as well as assigning ISBNs, has bought Medialab Solutions, the Amsterdam company that developed the search interface.

If you haven’t used AquaBrowser lately, try it out.

found on ResourceShelf