College Librarian Emeritus Thomas M. Shaw III, credited with reorganizing and rebuilding Russell D. Cole Library’s collection, died Jan. 26, 2025, in Fort Collins, Colorado.
Shaw directed Cole Library for 17 years—from 1982 to 1999—and helped redesign the building for its major 1995 renovation. Although his training was in academic librarianship, Shaw wholeheartedly embraced Cole Library’s role in housing the Mount Vernon Public Library, culminating in a successful referendum of tax revenue support for the public library.
Shaw also taught women’s studies courses at Cornell on the goddess tradition and on the works of Willa Cather and Virginia Woolf.
As a person who was proud of his Choctaw heritage, he was a scholar of Native American history and served a sabbatical at the Navajo Community College in Arizona. After retiring from Cornell he taught humanities courses at The University of New Mexico-Taos for 19 years. In 2010 he earned his Ph.D. in humanities from the California Institute of Integral Studies.
Prior to Cornell, Shaw was in charge of acquisition at the University of Northern Iowa library for 13 years, following library positions with the Defense Intelligence Agency in Washington, D.C., Georgetown University, and Arlington County, Virginia. He held a master of library science degree from the University of Oklahoma, master’s degrees in history and literature from the University of Northern Iowa, and a bachelor’s degree in history and English from the University of Alabama.
He is survived by his wife, Stephanie Shaw; two daughters; seven sons; and seven grandchildren.