I have to be honest, I use Google Scholar ALL THE TIME. Sometimes Mesh searching in PubMed just won't pull up what I want, and Google Scholar will. I even teach our patrons to use it since it is at least a step up from using just Google.

It looks like Microsoft is getting into the game with Microsoft Academic Search. I was sure Microsoft had a product like this before, but the site says it's in beta, so I could be wrong!

I did a few test searches, and it actually does some things better than Google. There are options to limit by date, author, publication, conference and academic area. You can also directly export citations into RefWorks or EndNote. I really like the ability to limit by academic area since there is a lot in the social sciences/psychology areas that PubMed doesn't index. I also like that everything is linked- authors, journals, and citations. Link surfing at it's finest! There are also several graphic search tools that I haven't tried- academic map, citation graph, domain trends, etc.

All those links and limit options and everything else can make the page a little busy which I don't like. But, I think Microsoft may actually have a contender here!

The iLibrarian blog had a great post on mastering the art of the elevator speech with links to videos, articles, and even elevator speech builders.

I find myself using this tactic more and more- usually in response to, 'So, what do you librarians do now that everything is on the internet?' I find that a short promotional spiel about the continued value of librarians tends to go over better than hitting these questioners with, say, Goldman's Cecil Medicine (3000 pages ought to knock sense into anyone!).

The ALA is putting on a free webinar titled, ''Mastering the Art of Resiliency in an Uncertain Workplace'. It will be held October 12th at 12:00- a little late notice, but you can still sign up and get the recording later if you can't attend the live session.

Here is the description that got me interested:

Are you one of the many professionals who go to work each day feeling\nanxious or overwhelmed because of increased responsibilities and\nuncertainty in the workplace?

Pretty much a standard sta for a lot of librarians (and everyone else these days!).

Here is information on the presenter:

This webinar is the first in a series being offered by the ALA JobLIST\nPlacement Center designed to help library workers cope with current\nemployment situations. They will be presented by Dr. Caitlin Williams,\nPh.D., a career development consultant and coach. Dr. Williams works\nwith individuals and organizations to create and implement professional\ndevelopment initiatives. She focuses on helping professionals leverage\ntheir talents in ways that truly make a difference.

The CDC has published a special issue of MMWR celebrating 50 years of publication. Did you know that the MMWR had the first published report of the illness that would become known as AIDS? This is a fascinating historical look at how medicine has responded to public health issues.

There was a recent email on the Med-lib listserv linking out to an article title, Medical News: 10 Rules to Expose Medical Junk News . This article requires a free registration to read. The content is based on Gary Schwitzer's review criteria from his website, HealthNewsReview .

HealthNewsReview seems to be a bit of the Snopes of the medical reporting field. A great new resource that I had not known about.

Thanks to Carol Seiler for pointing this one out!

A summary of the 2½-hour panel discussion that was held at HealthLINE’s quarterly meeting on July 21, 2011, is now available: HealthLINE Panel Program Summary (21 July 2011). This summary was prepared through the excellent and copious notes taken by Jean Hillyer, Secretary, and Mary Peters, Chair-Elect.

The discussion featured the current president of the Medical Library Association; the chair of the Department of Library and Information Sciences, College of Information, University of North Texas; health science librarianship professors from UNT and Texas Woman's University; a health science library director; and a relatively recent graduate.

The Copyright Clearance Center has a cute video on copyright basics that they have made available (for non-commercial use, of course!). At just six minutes it would make a nice intro to a copyright presentation for your staff.

The video is available on the CCC's website.

"Our special guest at July's HealthLINE meeting -- Jerry Perry, current MLA President -- has posted a report of his visit with us on his MLA President Page. So take a few minutes to read about how much fun he had with us!

He's also posted a few pictures:

• Two awesome HealthLINE librarians!
• A wacky dress made of books at the TWU Library!
• Friends from the UNT College of Information and the Department of Library and Information Sciences

According to Jerry, the site is best viewed in Firefox, but Internet Explorer has worked well for some. Enjoy!!"

The National Information Center on Health Services Research and Health Care Technology (NICHSR) is offering a two part webinar designed to help us evaluate healthcare choices.

The first webinar is titled, 'A 2011 Update - Introduction to Health Technology Assessment' and it will be held on August 31 at 12:00 pm.

The second webinar is titled, 'CTA-HTA-PCOR: Converging on What Works for Patients' and it will be held on September 7 at 12:00 pm.

No registration is required. Links to the webinar will appear on the information page the day of the class.

Clouds- what are those again? I'm sure I remember seeing some long, long ago.

Ah well, there are clouds on the internet apparently. But, instead of shading your yellowing grass and wilting plants, these clouds offer a place to store all your digital stuff.

I've not been living under a rock (unshaded), so I've heard of cloud storage, but I really didn't know what was available. Gizmodo has a nice little article titled, 'The Best Way to Store Stuff in the Cloud' that compares several cloud storage providers.

Thanks to iLibrarian for the link.