Marissa

Digitize first, catalog later.

🚨 The Watertown Free Public Library (MA) has been receiving organized harassment for including 2 books on suggested summer reading lists. Support the library and defend the freedom to read JULY 31 at 7 pm at the library board meeting at the Watertown Middle School. @authorsabb.bsky.social 🧵

Important question…do you sell reproductions in the gift shop

Dr. Hayden was the CEO of our Enoch Pratt Free Library here in Baltimore before becoming the Librarian of Congress. She is the best of our profession and her firing is a disgrace.

The playground overlooking the pond also rules - I think it’s the green space opposite the pond in your photo. When the ice cream truck pulls up there on a summer day it’s heavenly.

Still not used to what a mixed bag Massachusetts weather is in April. It was nearly 70° one day last week.

The real cherry on top is when you tell them “It’s fine, I can just eat it” and they freak out because that is THEIR avocado toast that they hate

Painting of a three-masted ship coming to the aid of another three-masted ship, which is flying the American flag upside down in distress. The rescue ship has been painted directly into the glass of the frame, creating the illusion of depth.

The same painting photographed at an angle to accentuate the painting on glass.

Couldn’t stop looking at this painting from different angles- reverse painting on glass is such a wild technique. It’s “Ship Matchless Rescuing the Crew of the Ship Japan off Cape Horn” (circadian 1870) by Carolus Cornelis Weytz at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, MA.

I did this gambit with my 3-year-old where we watched so much goddamned Clubhouse this morning. It paid off and now we’re watching red carpet coverage and discussing which dresses we like. I have to do it while pretending to be the mama penguin from Happy Feet but I consider it a win.

Mine would absolutely put it inside of a toy. Cash register drawer, garbage truck, doll house - all places I’ve found random household items small enough to fit. Or just in the trash.

Excerpt from a public letter Roald Dahl wrote encouraging people to vaccinate their children. Olivia, my eldest daughter, caught measles when she was seven years old. As the illness took its usual course I can remember reading to her often in bed and not feeling particularly alarmed about it. Then one morning, when she was well on the road to recovery, I was sitting on her bed showing her how to fashion little animals out of coloured pipe-cleaners, and when it came to her turn to make one herself, I noticed that her fingers and her mind were not working together and she couldn’t do anything. “Are you feeling all right?” I asked her. “I feel all sleepy,” she said. In an hour, she was unconscious. In twelve hours she was dead. The measles had turned into a terrible thing called measles encephalitis and there was nothing the doctors could do to save her. That was twenty-four years ago in 1962, but even now, if a child with measles happens to develop the same deadly reaction from measles as Olivia did, there would still be nothing the doctors could do to help her. On the other hand, there is today something that parents can do to make sure that this sort of tragedy does not happen to a child of theirs. They can insist that their child is immunized against measles. I was unable to do that for Olivia in 1962 because in those days a reliable measles vaccine had not been discovered. Today a good and safe vaccine is available to every family and all you have to do is to ask your doctor to administer it.

The measles outbreak in Texas is reminding me of the public letter Roald Dahl wrote about losing his daughter to measles in 1962, just before the vaccine was publicly available.

Join the Library of Congress for a Douglass Day 2025 Transcribe-a-Thon and Other Black History Month Events Join the Library of Congress for a Douglass Day 2025 Transcribe-a-Thon and Other Black History Month Events On Feb. 14, history enthusiasts and the public can celebrate the extraordinary legacy of...

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Join the Library of Congress for a Douglass Day 2025 Transcribe-a-Thon and Other Black History Month Events

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an orange cat has an agitated and confused expression on his face, and part of a jacket on his neck

Seems like a nice day for running around screaming questions at each other that we know full well have no answers

Hand-tinted photograph of a tree-lined road in Florida.

Still thinking about this hand-tinted photograph of Florida from 1894.

This photo was blown into our yard during the Eaton Canyon fire. Anyone from Pasadena/Altadena recognize these people?

Astrolabe with an object tag that identifies it as dating to 1592.

Admired this astrolabe today

A packet of Engel’s Quick Way Art Corners to mount photos and postcards inside an album. The ad printed on the packet shows an illustration of a photo of a woman holding up a photo album held in place with the art corners.

Image of a photo album being examined by a person with gloved hands.

Looked at a photo album for digitization today, and the c.1920s compiler was kind enough to include the leftover corners used to mount the photos to the pages. I wish this happened more often with scrapbooks and albums!

Clarendon Building please!

Thrilled that it is finally the season where it is societally acceptable to switch from watching the BBC Pride and Prejudice miniseries on a loop while I try to fall asleep to watching the Christmas Prince trilogy on a loop.