Diane Shaw
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museocat.bsky.social
Diane Shaw
@museocat.bsky.social
Retired museum library cataloger in Washington, DC area. Fond of birds and travel.
Reposted by Diane Shaw
Blasted? Yikes
When Lucy from Compass Books in Dartmouth, Devon, was victim to shoplifting people told her to install CCTV. Instead she put this ancient book thief curse on the wall from the Monastery of San Pedro in Barcelona so book stealers would be consumed by "the flames of hell" with "their members blasted".
February 12, 2026 at 7:55 PM
I remember Reagan claimed CO2 benefited trees as well.
February 11, 2026 at 9:00 PM
I just don’t understand some folks’ eagerness to destroy whole lines of useful employment especially without pairing that with universal basic income. Absolute nonsense indeed!
February 11, 2026 at 1:25 PM
Perhaps this assumes every document etc. has been digitized but that will never be true and what is digitized needs a lot of added metadata and context. It’s clearly a fantasy made by those who don’t understand the work of historians.
February 11, 2026 at 1:22 PM
As a librarian myself, I thought that omission was odd too. After all, the list includes Archivists.
February 11, 2026 at 1:13 PM
The USA will need its own Stolpersteine project eventually, to mark the pavement in front of the homes where ICE & CBP took families away. www.stolpersteine.eu/en/the-art-m...
Stolpersteine | Stolpersteine
www.stolpersteine.eu
February 11, 2026 at 3:34 AM
Reposted by Diane Shaw
I am teaching my digital manuscripts seminar for the first time since the British Library hack that took all their digitized books offline and... it's a lot.
A downside of classroom exercises that require digital tools is that you constantly have to update them because websites disappear, apps change their interfaces (making your instructions out of date), and half the time what works on one computer doesn’t work on the next computer over.
February 10, 2026 at 11:22 PM
I kinda wish Canada would.
February 10, 2026 at 1:39 PM
Reposted by Diane Shaw
Meet the 1591 cat man. I am counting 7 cats on and near him. #catcontent
February 10, 2026 at 7:59 AM
Boyle’s “follow the money” video was especially enlightening. Just watching his latest video. I’m so glad he’s not deterred from pursuing this topic.
February 8, 2026 at 6:11 PM
Reposted by Diane Shaw
An exhibit dedicated to the first African American soldiers to join the U.S. Army (#USCT #BuffaloSoldiers) is on display at the Ontario Museum of History and Art in Ontario, California.
abc7.com/post/ontario...
Ontario museum exhibit pays tribute Buffalo Soldiers, trailblazing US Army servicemembers
An exhibit dedicated to the first African-American soldiers to join the U.S. Army is on display at the Ontario Museum of History and Art.
abc7.com
February 8, 2026 at 1:05 PM
Reposted by Diane Shaw
I used to work at an Important Institution in the History of Medicine where we routinely displayed Vesalius’ very famous anatomy text, which was published in 1543. We showed lots of naked peeps.

Staff there now told me in 2023 that they were no longer to show naked pics! From 1543! To doctors!
February 7, 2026 at 11:34 AM
That’s a huge missed opportunity, especially when you are willing to set up a NACO funnel. Clean, reliable headings & metadata are crucial to good findability but I guess employers think AI will handle all that.
February 6, 2026 at 5:05 PM
I’m so sorry you were laid off, Violet. You ought to be a top candidate in any search. I wish you luck in getting a good position that you like and can stay at. Your advice to hiring committees is on point and will hopefully embraced widely by libraries.
February 6, 2026 at 4:29 PM
Very true. My former employer (I’m retired) had over a dozen catalogers in the late 90s & early 2000s, now there’s only 1 not-yet-fully trained cataloger on staff. Another might be hired eventually but not likely soon. And this is at an employer with some of the most challenging items to describe.
February 6, 2026 at 4:25 PM
Yes, and it’s wonderful that Corvids still hang around during cold winters.
February 6, 2026 at 1:20 PM
I love those sassy Bluejays.
February 6, 2026 at 1:06 PM
Reposted by Diane Shaw
paid summer internship in our museum, it is in BOTANY but you cannot get in there without walking through the insect collection and being subjected to Beetle Facts drive.google.com/file/d/1jNNy...
CMNH Botany Internship Solicitation 2026 .pdf
drive.google.com
February 5, 2026 at 5:01 PM
Reposted by Diane Shaw
Civil rights activist Medgar Evers was shot in the back by a Klansman in 1963.

The National Park Service has removed visitor brochures from Evers' museum and reportedly plans to remove references that call his murderer a “racist"
Medgar Evers’ killer was a Klansman, but Trump administration says stop calling him a racist - Mississippi Today
Among anticipated changes to a new visitor brochure for the Medgar & Myrlie Evers Home National Monument is no longer using "racist" to describe the killer of the civil rights leader.
mississippitoday.org
February 5, 2026 at 3:20 PM
Reposted by Diane Shaw
And if you are a librarian who has used MMM in the past & plan to use MMM in 2026- drop me a DM :-D #2026MMM
a black and white photo of a dog wearing headphones and a bow tie talking on a telephone .
Alt: old timey footage of two dogs "talking" on old timey phones.
media.tenor.com
February 2, 2026 at 5:52 PM
Reposted by Diane Shaw
Checked out the Milwaukee Art Museum mainly to see the building.
January 30, 2026 at 11:33 PM
Reposted by Diane Shaw
This position deadline has been extended, now closing Feb 2. This job's got everything- library systems, cultural heritage metadata, digitization and IIIF, system integration and security, art, dedicated colleagues, AI experimentation, an IM Pei building... what more could you want?
January 23, 2026 at 6:49 PM
Are we going after Antarctica next? 🐧
January 23, 2026 at 11:25 PM
It would make more sense if Minnesota could be annexed by Canada, I think.
January 23, 2026 at 5:36 PM
Reposted by Diane Shaw
John has written an amazing book about Washington and slavery. Highly recommend having him in your show/podcast/newsletter to discuss it.
I know I don't have a ton of media followers, but I'll put this out there anyway: if you need someone to comment/offer context on the removal of the slavery exhibit at the President's House site in Philly, get in touch. I just finished an entire book on Americans' fight over Washington and slavery.
January 23, 2026 at 12:27 AM