It might not be Imposter Syndrome... We need to talk about Trespasser Syndrome

Back in 2014 I wrote on this blog that Imposter Syndrome ran through librarianship like a vein. Writing now in 2025, I consider that a misdiagnosis.

Imposter Syndrome is defined as a psychological condition, characterised, as Miriam-Webster has it, by ‘persistent doubt concerning one's abilities or accomplishments accompanied by the fear of being exposed as a fraud despite evidence of one's ongoing success.’

The insidious thing about Imposter Syndrome is it individualises suffering. It’s not something being done to you; it’s something you ‘have’, a personal flaw that comes from within. And because the concept of Imposter Syndrome is so wide-spread, it’s easy not to question that the blame is yours.

It reminds me of the concept of ‘resilience’ as it is applied in Higher Education - the onus is on us as staff to simply become strong enough (or numb enough) to deal with any amount of stress or disruption, rather than on the institutions to try and reduce the imposition of harsher and harsher conditions.

Back in 2014, and indeed now, I was surrounded by brilliant colleagues in the profession who doubted themselves, who thought they were only ever a slip away from the big reveal that they Didn’t Belong Here, despite the evidence to the contrary. It was their ‘condition’ which meant they couldn’t see the truth of their excellence. Right?

Then in 2020, I read a brilliant article on In the Library With the Lead Pipe (consistently the most readable and through-provoking peer-reviewed journal I’ve come across), by Nicola Andrews, entitled It’s Not Imposter Syndrome: Resisting Self-Doubt as Normal For Library Workers.

I’d recommend reading the whole thing but this is the paragraph that really stuck with me:

“As a Māori, takatāpui, immigrant, person of colour, and first-generation scholar, I know that libraries and academia were not constructed for my benefit; and that systems of colonization, white supremacy, misogyny, and hatred continue to operate within them and wider society. The lack of belonging I felt did not stem from a lack of self-esteem, but from the knowledge that libraries and academia as institutions never intended I belong.”

— Nicola Andrews

I feel embarrassed now, that someone needed to point this out to me. I had credited my own lack of Imposter Syndrome as basically being down to a) the sense of self instilled in my by my parents and b) the fact I’d chosen the right profession for me. But of course, it has infinitely more to do with privilege: with the fact that as a white middle-class male my profession and my industry - librarianship and higher education - didn’t treat me like an imposter.

If you’re an ethnically minoritised member of staff in a University and you feel doubt concerning your abilities and whether you truly belong, I’d wager that there’s a good chance it is not the apparently capricious ‘condition’ of Imposter Syndrome - I’d wager you’ve been made to feel like an imposter. If you’re female, or from a working class background, or disabled, or are part of any other underrepresented group, and you feel like an imposter, there’s a good chance you’ve been treated like an imposter. This comes from without, not from within. And that’s not Imposter Syndrome.

(Sidenote: if you’re a white middle class man who feels doubt concerning your abilities and whether you truly belong, it’s not impossible you’ve been promoted beyond your abilities. That’s not Imposter Syndrome either, that’s actually being an imposter…)

How many cases of Imposter Syndrome are actually misdiagnosed? This matters because the term becomes pernicious when it is widely used for groups it was never intended to describe. As Dr Raquel Martin notes, the original 1970s study ‘focused on high-achieving, middle to upper-class European American women, observing how they attributed success to luck rather than their own abilities… the concept was never designed to capture the experiences of marginalised groups like black people, who face additional systemic barriers.’

Trespasser Syndrome

I’ve been working with a brilliant colleague at York, Raj Mann, on a project centred on inclusion and belonging in the library, and I’m indebted to her for introducing me to the term ‘Trespasser Syndrome’. If you’ve read this far and you agree with most or all of what I’ve said above, you’re probably already nodding your head in recognition at how much this new framing improves upon the old framing. It’s not that Imposter Syndrome doesn’t exist - it’s that in so many cases, it is misapplied: in fact the person is made to feel like they’re trespassing in a space simply not intended for them.

I believe the term ‘Trespasser Syndrome’ was coined by Dr Arin N. Reeves, in 2022. I’d recommend reading all of her article Is It Imposter Syndrome or Is It Trespasser Syndrome? - here’s a key quote:

“People from underrepresented groups are not afraid that they are imposters; they are afraid that the majority groups won’t see them for who they are and won’t welcome them if they do see them. These fears are not the fears of imposters; they are the fears of trespassers.

A trespasser is someone who enters spaces they are not supposed to be, where they do not belong. A trespasser isn’t afraid of being discovered for who they really are; they are afraid of being treated like they don’t belong where they are.”

— Dr Arin N. Reeves

What we do about it?

Language and nuance matter, so let’s stop misapplying the term Imposter Syndrome to situations where individuals and groups are being treated like imposters. It’s never good perpetuate harmful language, whether intentionally or not. Reeves advises us to ‘Use “imposter syndrome” when it’s relevant. Differentiate it from “trespasser syndrome” to honor the realities of succeeding in spite of not belonging.’

More than that though, we need to interrogate examples of Imposter Syndrome. If someone you work with says they have it, or describes its symptoms, we need to do more than nod and smile and say ‘I know how you feel’ - we need to work out why they’ve been made to feel like an imposter, and whether we can do anything to change that. How can we create environments that support under underrepresented groups, and dismantle the systems which tell people they don’t belong?

I’ll leave the last word on this to someone much more qualified to talk about it than me. Raj has in fact organised the first ever Trespasser’s Conference as part of her role at YCEDE (the Yorkshire Consortium for Equity in Doctoral Education) and during her keynote address she said this:

“For those of you here today who support racially minoritised staff and students, ask yourselves: have I provided people with the tools they need to be able to thrive in the space? If not, what else do I need to be doing? Instead of helping underrepresented groups to walk past the metaphorical ‘no entry or ‘no trespassing signs,’ instead pull down the sign before they get there, have a comfortable seat ready for them: don’t just applaud the courage and grit on getting there.”

— Raj Mann

Show-notes: guest appearence on the Keeper & Curator Podcast, talking social media

I had one of my favourite professional conversations ever the other day, and as it happens it was recorded! I was honoured to be a guest on the Keeper & Curator podcast, run by my colleagues at York Helena Cox and Gary Brannan, which despite being new has already been fantastically successful (number 1 in the Visual Arts UK podcast chart, wooop). I’ve loved long-form conversation podcasts for so long, so to be actually in one and have a really great discussion was properly fun. We talked a lot about social media, about what works and what doesn’t, about exploring art abroad, and about the University of York’s sculpture trail.

I know it’s a big swing to expect anyone reading this to want to listen to me on a podcast about Art, so I thought I’d provide some shownotes with time-codes that tell you what we talk about and when, in case any of it is of interest or relevance to you. A large portion of the chat is relevant to anyone interested in using social media to engage audiences, across libraries, HE, and the Arts more generally.

Here’s the podcast:

First things first, you can find the episode Social Media and Unfinished Business here on Spotify, or you can find it on Apple Podcasts if you prefer, and probably a bunch of other places besides. Here’s the Apple version embedded:

0:00 - 2:17 Preamble

The welcomes and hellos happen in this bit.

We recorded in the Library’s Podcast Studio - it’s one of our most popular services and I’ve spent some time marketing it, but never used it before. It was pretty nice, extremely high quality mics where you feel like you can hear the blood in your veins they’re so sensitive… Here we all are, in a post-record selfie.

From left-to-right: Gary (the Keeper), me (the guest), and Helena (the Curator)

2:18 - 13:49 social media and the arts

In this section we talk a little about the personality-driven social media that Helena does via the Art@York profiles, which I think is absolutely brilliant. You can find Art@York on Facebook here (the former Library account, as you’ll hear if you listen to this bit!), or Art@York on Insta here, or Art@York on Bluesky here.

We talk a lot about why art collections work on Instagram etc, and I found it really interesting to explore this. I do think the overwhelming availability of everything means curation of any kind is more important than ever, and I do think we’ve all become so good at using imagery in our social media that it just becomes white noise - so meaningful imagery on social media really makes a difference.

13:50 - 18:37 can social media be taught or is it intuitive?

An interesting question from Gary prompts a discussion about whether social media can be taught. It absolutely can be (please get in touch and book a workshop!) but certain approaches do rely on an intuitive grasp. Either way though, putting personality into your comms is what builds relationship and engagement - if it’s fully corporate, people just do not respond.

18:38 - 24:35 AI in social media

I have over time become massively against using for example AI-generated imagery on professional social media, and this section covers why. You basically alienate a large part of your potential audience if you continue to use AI slop.

24:36 - 29:39 The different demographics for different social media platforms

One of the traps institutions often fall into when doing social media is treating all the platforms the same, and cross-posting content. I get why this happens, with time-pressures being primarily to blame, but the issue is that the platforms work completely differently, and have quite different demographics.

29:40 - 39:29 Creativity, music, and being from a line of artists but unable to produce visual art…

The Queen Mother, by Peter Walbourn

I hail from generations of artists, and I cannot draw a line or a circle or indeed absolutely anything at all, with any skill. My Mum is an incredible artist (our house is filled with things she’s made for us) and so was her Dad, Peter Walbourn. He once painted the Queen Mum and was struggling to get the detail of her brooch down in time for the end of the sitting. Why don’t you take it home with you, Her Maj suggested! Is it insured, my Grandpa asked? Oh, we couldn’t possibly afford to insure it, she replied… (He took it home anyway and my Gran slept with it under her pillow to keep it safe.)

My Great Grandfather was the painter Ernest Walbourn, and we discuss the many unfinished paintings of his we have in our house during this section of the podcast. Here’s the main himself at work - one of the things I like about this picture is he’s literally doing the thing we discuss in the episode: 70% of the painting is done to completion, but the sky is entirely untouched, a literal blank canvas.

Ernest Walbourn at work, probably in the early 1920s

The other part of Ernest lineage which did NOT reach me is sporting prowess: he was in fact invited to join the Olympic shooting team, and my parents have a letter from an Olympic committee member reassuring colleagues that Ernest was a gentleman, despite being an artist…

In particular we talk about one painting on my wall, of a tree, unfinished, which I absolutely loved Helena’s expert take on. Here’s the pic.

The unfinished tree painting, left

After listening to the podcast my Mum got in touch to say this was the very tree under which my grandparents got engaged! Lovely stuff.

39:30 - 52:17 My top tip for visiting galleries and museums

If you only take one thing… Steal my Te Papa techniques as described in this section! Some more on the New Zealand Lianza experience, including images of the museum in its glorious emptyness, here. Plus more on the Latvian children’s art / library strategy here.

We also discuss UX methodologies, and the benefits of having a curated art collection on campus.

52:18 - end My favourite art on campus

I insisted they ask me this question - what is my favourite art on campus? I talked about two pieces. First of all Beyond and Within by Joanna Mowbray.

Pic via the Art@York - click to see the original on Facebook

The piece I picked as my favourite was the Singing Stone by Gordon Young. I mentioned in the podcast the Alumni post on Insta of Helena describing the piece, and the YouTube shorts version is embedded below:

---

If you’ve made it this far, thank you for reading! I absolutely loved being on the podcast, so thank you Helena and Gary for having me.

The Researcher's Guide to Bluesky

If you’re reading this you probably know the emerging social network Bluesky has had an explosion of popularity. I wanted to set up a profile for my library, but I needed it to be worth it - we needed a critical mass of University of York people there to rebuild our former Twitter network.

With that in mind I decided to adapt a Bluesky guide I’d written on here, to make it a guide for Researchers - the idea being to make it as easy as possible for people to make the switch. In other words, I’ve tried to help catalyse the change I needed in order to justify putting time into Bluesky, and I think overall this approach actually worked!

Because the guide was aimed at academics in particular, I sought input from academics at York who were already on the platform. Would you like to be in a York Starter Pack I asked them, and do you have any tips for your peers? They were all terrifically enthusiastic about the idea for the guide, and gave lots of useful quotes - the researcher perspective was essential, so I’m grateful to them all. I also got permission from the Central Comms Team at the University to do this in the first place, sharing a draft with them and adding some pointers around policy which they wanted included.

1: The Researcher’s Guide to Bluesky

>> Here, then, is the Researcher’s Guide To Bluesky.

It’s published on my library’s blog rather than on here because I wanted it to be seen as an ‘official’ output of the Library & Archives. I promoted it via staff newsletters, asking the Central Comms Team to add it to their Bluesky guidance, and of course going back to each and every York academic I’d spoken to about the platform to share a link with them.

I also used it to launch the library’s Bluesky account. I thought this would be good - you can’t beat being USEFUL to hit the ground running on a new social media platform - but considering we had no followers and Bluesky doesn’t have a centralised algorithm to push content towards people, I’m fairly stunned about how much engagement we got. At the time of writing it is exactly three weeks since we posted a link to the guide (as part of a larger thread outlining its key points) and we’ve had over 600 reposts and 750+ Likes - plus so, so many replies, pins, and messages of thanks.

We've written a Researcher's Guide to Bluesky! It's a bit like all those other useful guides to Bluesky, but with several useful insights from University of York academics about using the platform, and we'd love it if it was reposted far and wide... >> blogs.york.ac.uk/library/2024... 🧵 below

[image or embed]

— University of York Library (@uoylibrary.bsky.social) November 13, 2024 at 12:17 PM

The great thing about the guide doing so well is it exposed us to new followers (including York people who may not otherwise found us), established some credibility for us as an account worth listening to, and literally brought more researchers to the platform which was of course the main driver for writing it in the first place. We now have around five-and-a-half thousand followers after 21 days - on Twitter we had around 7,500 (before Musk took over and everyone left) but that took us 12 years, and engagement was way lower than it is on Bluesky.

As successful as the guide was, the fact is the York blog on which it was posted isn’t well known enough for people to just randomly stumble across it - you need to be sent there via a link in an email or a Bluesky post, realistically. I wanted to reach more researchers through an existing authority with an established network, to get more eyes on the guide - so I pitched a version to the LSE Impact Blog for Social Sciences. You’re probably familiar with this but if you’re not, the key thing to know is it has completely out-stripped the original purpose that gave it its name! The blog has become a sort of academic hub for ideas and practical guides for people across all disciplines in Higher Education.

2: How to get started on Academic bluesky

>> Here, then, is How To Get Started With Academic Bluesky.

The above is a shorter version of the first guide, due to the Impact Blog’s word-count limit - it has the York-policy-specific parts omitted, and is generally leaner. It also benefits from some helpful suggestions given to me by Michael Taser, the Managing Editor (the final paragraph in particular) and in general I prefer this edition of the guide.

This version has also had a great reception and achieved the aim of reaching more people, hopefully bringing more researchers to the platform (which will in turn make it more useful for the York academics, meaning more of THEM will come to the platform, meaning the time WE are putting into it becomes more worthwhile, and so on and so on). Certainly the greater reach of the Impact blog has helped a lot - it’s had probably around 150% of the views of the original guide.

As more and more libraries started to appear on the Bluesky as part of its November popularity surge, it was inevitable that I’d end up writing yet another iteration…

3: The Library Guide to Bluesky

>> Here, then, is the Library Guide to Bluesky.

The edition is published here on this blog because it’s written ‘as me’, rather than as the library itself. This is a culmination of what I’ve learned and applied from writing the other guides, with some advice on actual content thrown in there as well.

Again I’d like to reach a wider audience than I can get to on this blog alone, so I’ve pitched a version to Library Journal and we’ll see what they say. Speaking of pitches…

4: a bluesky guide for academic departments and professional services

>> Here, then, is the University Guide to Bluesky.

I pitched a guide to the Times Higher (for whom I’ve written a couple of pieces previously), again on the grounds that reach will be higher there than here, with my target audience. This version is organisational rather than individual, and very much HE in nature - although much of it could apply across the cultural sector.

And that will be that - no more Bluesky guides from me (almost certainly!) and all bases covered. Taking experiences and chunking them up into (hopefully useful) guidance for others has always been one of my favourite things, so I’ve actually really enjoyed this whole Bluesky business… One reply I got to a Bluesky post sums up why it’s worth the time to write these:

“So appreciated!!! From little tips to engagement and the starter packs. You have no idea how helpful this is when you’re doing this in addition to the ‘day job’ but also trying to inform/advocate for your colleagues/researchers that you support in a newish area of social media! Bravo!!”

— A Researcher Engagement Team

The Library Guide to Bluesky

During November 2024, the social network Bluesky underwent a significant transformation. What had been a platform where a few libraries set up experimental profiles with mixed results, suddenly became a space where many libraries were achieving substantial engagement.

In short, Bluesky has reached a critical mass, with enough users leaving Twitter and joining the platform for it be considered a legitimate X-replacement. This shift makes it worth considering setting up an account for your institution. At one point Bluesky saw a million new users joining daily: for libraries—and cultural organisations in general—this presents a unique opportunity to rebuild communities that have become harder to reach elsewhere.

There are plenty of examples of libraries finding success on Bluesky to draw inspiration from. I went from considering Bluesky to be brilliant for librarians but perhaps not yet suitable for libraries themselves, to seeing an explosion of library success that changed my mind. My own library has been on Bluesky for just over two weeks, and we've seen engagement levels far exceed what we experienced on Twitter over the past two years, as shown below.

If you’ve not seen Bluesky before, the first thing you’ll notice is how similar it is to Twitter in look and feel

And it’s not just us: others have posted comparisons showing engagement is much higher - and more positive - on Bluesky, and newspapers are finding click-throughs to their articles are way higher than on Twitter or Threads also, because links are not suppressed on the newer platform (see info on the lack of algorithm, below).

We’ve built a following quickly too, and while it’s not (yet) quite as big as our ex-X community was, it only took us 9 days to reach the total number of followers we had on Twitter after 9 years! Here’s how the first week went:

Our following numbers were helped by a very popular post (shown in the previous screenshot): a researcher’s guide to Bluesky. Being entertaining is good but being USEFUL is what leads to a larger following

So if you’re a cultural organisation and you’re either new to Bluesky, or considering setting up a profile, what do you need to know? Here’s a library guide to Bluesky: 13 tips to help you hit the ground running.

The big picture stuff

1. Learn from the organisations already active on Bluesky

You may be familiar with ‘Starter Packs’ on Bluesky - this is simply a curated collection of accounts, which you can follow all in one go. Use these to get a good idea of how comparable institutions are using the platform, and steal some of their ideas! I’d recommend pressing the ‘follow all’ button then unfollowing selectively as you go.

I’ve tried to think about what would be most useful for a nascent Bluesky library account, and settled on sector-by-sector Packs as the way forward so you can see what your immediate peers are up to, what sort of content works and gets engagement, and who is already having success. If you fall into the categories below and are not on these lists, tell me on Bluesky and I’ll add you!

Here they are:

• The Academic Libraries Bluesky starter pack. Of all the sectors in libraries, the academic sector appears to be having the most success on Bluesky so far. This is not because of the nature of the content they’re posting, I don’t think - there’s just a lot of the academic community moving to the platform already.

  If you work in an academic library, my uncomplicated recommendation is to get off Twitter, and get on to Bluesky.

  Hopefully this starter pack will provide some inspiration from the libraries already making it work. (Please note there are also three other packs particularly relevant to this sector, none of which I created: the Open Research pack, and the University Presses pack, and the Archives and Special Collections pack.)

• The Public Libraries Bluesky starter pack. This sector is starting to make its way on to the platform, although at the moment there’s a few libraries grabbing the username but not actively posting. In UK terms the two social media behemouths in public libraries are of course the British Library who have not been on Bluesky too long but have already amassed 20k followers, and Orkney who have only been here for 4 days but already past 5k! I love both those libraries and their social media output, but would caution against using them for too much inspiration as their huge followings and cultural cache slightly set them apart from an especially copyable model… I’d recommend checking out Hull Libraries as an example of a newish public library account making the platform work well. (I also see some public libraries having success with Threads, and would recommend choosing one platform or the other rather than spreading your time too thin across both.)

• The Health Libraries Bluesky starter pack. Medical and health libraries are starting to arrive now, and I’ll keep adding them to this pack as they do - it will be interesting to see whether Bluesky or Instagram are the best use of the social media time available.

I’m yet to see enough School Libraries, Law Libraries or other Special Libraries to create Packs for those sectors - that will hopefully change over time. You’ll find recommendations for librarian (rather than library) starter packs in this separate guide.

2. Set up your profile fully before engaging

Every Bluesky guide I’ve read (or written!) says this but I still see loads of accounts falling into the trap of following people before doing their profile. I get it, you’re excited to connect… But trust me you’re missing opportunities: accounts with generic avatars and no biography or introductory text are often perceived as likely to be bots, so users often don’t follow back and sometimes auto-block. Please sort your profile, and write an introductory post, before going on that following spree. It’s well worth it.

3. Get yourself into relevant Starter Packs

Getting into Starter Packs is a great way to accelerate follower growth, especially early on. It may happen on its own, but it’s best to be proactive - just ask the owners of packs to add you! That’s not some sort of breach of etiquette; speaking for myself I want to hear from you and make the packs more useful.

A very popular pack which is great to be on if possible is The MERL’s Arts & Culture pack which gets huge engagement; look locally for Packs created by parent organisations or local groups too. You can search for packs to follow and potentially to join, in the Bluesky Directory.

4. Create Starter Packs of your own that will help your community

One of the best things to ensure enough of your community is on Bluesky to make it worth your while to set up a profile, is to help that audience move from Twitter. I’ve done this in a couple of ways for my library - one is to write the Researcher’s Guide to Bluesky, which proved to be a very popular early post with over 500 reposts so far, and which I’ve got into all the relevant staff newsletters etc. The other way to create a University of York Starter Pack, so people from the institution can instantly find and connect with each other.

I’d highly recommend you do one or both of these things early on - create a Starter Pack if the need for one exists, which is helpful for your community; and if applicable write a guide for that community (e.g. ‘the healthcare professionals guide to Bluesky’ or whatever is relevant).

5. Know your target audience, and create content for them (not for other librarians!)

This is essential social media advice regardless of platform. We need to know why we are there, and who we are there for. In my case, I consider Instagram and TikTok to be fabulous ways to reach University of York Students, so I’m crafting the stuff we put on Bluesky specifically for academics and researchers. Other people may enjoy it too which is great, but I’m using the account with a specific target audience in mind - and if I find I’m getting engagement from other libraries or info pros, and NOT from the target audience, I will tweak the content I’m putting out!

6. There’s no centralised algorithm so be proactive. Follow, reply, repost and engage

Bluesky is very Twitter-like in lots of functional ways: you can post up to 300 characters at a time, you can repost, you can Like, and so on. The crucial difference is the lack of algorithm on Bluesky’s default ‘Following’ feed. There’s no endlessly auto-refreshing content, just posts from the people you follow, in reverse chronological order. That’s it. So you need to follow a bunch of people to make your feed useful, and then start getting involved: join in conversations, ask questions, repost useful things, hit the Like button. In essence - this sounds pretentious I know - the aim is to cultivate community rather than just broadcast your library news.

The details

7. Make it accessible

Finally, a platform that offers alt-text for video as well as images! Thank you Bluesky. I’d recommend accessing Settings, find the Accessibility section, and toggle the switch marked Require alt-text before posting and you can create accessible content every time. Here’s a great resource on how to write alt-text descriptions.

8. Don’t be afraid to block and otherwise moderate your experience

One of the reasons for the notable lack of toxicity on Bluesky compared with Twitter is the moderation options are extensive and they actually work. Blocking is very powerful, muting words is effective, you can detach your own post from a Repost you’re not comfortable with, and so on. Make the most of all this baked-in protection.

9. for most libraries it’s probably worth having your Direct Messages open to all

The point above about moderation notwithstanding, ideally users should be able ask you questions via a DM even if you don’t follow them. The toggle-switch you require to enable this is not in Settings, but rather in the Chat area itself.

10. The question you need to ask yourself as a social media admin is not: what should I post about my org? It’s: what is my community interested in?

Often the best way to build community online is to post a mixture of things about your organisation, and things relevant to or adjacent to your organisation. For example, this post was popular among our target audience because it was about York - there was no informational or promotional message involved, and that’s fine.

We’re back! Today in #York aesthetics news, today’s vibe is rainsoaked but sunny.

[image or embed]

— University of York Library (@uoylibrary.bsky.social) November 25, 2024 at 10:29 AM

11. Don’t be afraid to explore ideas in a bit more detail

Brevity is great but it’s not the be-all and end-all - threads work well here. As well as posting a link to our Researcher’s Guide we also explored the contents in a thread and that really helped increase engagement.

We've written a Researcher's Guide to Bluesky! It's a bit like all those other useful guides to Bluesky, but with several useful insights from University of York academics about using the platform, and we'd love it if it was reposted far and wide... >> blogs.york.ac.uk/library/2024... 🧵 below

[image or embed]

— University of York Library (@uoylibrary.bsky.social) November 13, 2024 at 12:17 PM

12. Posting first thing is probably best avoided

You often get organisations posting 8:30 - 9:30 in the morning because it’s the only time the person doing the social media has any time (and as yet Bluesky lacks an in-built scheduling tool) but in my experience so far, it’s best to wait until later in the day as more people seem to be around. At least give it until mid-morning to post anything important, if you can.

13. Images are important, despite this being a (rare) text-based platform

Don’t get me wrong, they’re not essential like they are on Insta - but if you can add context or character to a post using a picture or video, do so. Engagement will likely be higher.

---

I hope the above is helpful, and I also hope it doesn’t make anyone feel pressured to get onto Bluesky if they’re not ready! It seems to be staying the course as a platform and growing all the time, so if you need a few months to get permission and management buy-in and ideas together and all that stuff, it will still be here waiting for you when you’re properly ready. (And of course, if you want a bespoke workshop on it, get in touch with me…)

There are various versions of this guide aimed at different audiences. If you’re looking at Bluesky more as an individual, this blogpost on ten top tips for joining may be helpful.

I’ve already mentioned the Researcher’s Guide To Bluesky above - a leaner, more efficient and less Yorky version of this appears on the LSE Impact Blog here and lots of people have said the tips apply to more than just researchers and academics.

I may yet produce a Uni Department’s Guide to Bluesky just to complete the set, but for now do leave a comment or get in touch if you have any further advice to add, or any questions.

And finally, whilst I have some caveats when recommending Bluesky to libraries (especially if you’re not an academic library) I really have no hesitation in recommending it to librarians and anyone who works in libraries. It’s proving in some ways to be better than Twitter ever was, and I really value the community there. If you haven’t already, join us!

New article for Times Higher on how to get your library / museum / charity etc to become ex-X

I very much think it’s time we got out organisations off Twitter / X, and I’m delighted to say there’s a real movement happening in that direction.

Since I wrote this blogpost about how to get your organisation off X and a shorter LinkledIn version which has had a lot of repostings, absolutely loads of people have got in touch from across librarianship and beyond, to say they’ve put the 5 suggested steps into practice and are getting off the platform.

I particularly loved this reposting from Angela Hursh, author of the Super Library Marketing blog:

“Here’s what happened when I stopped posting to Twitter:

✔ Traffic to my website remained the same.
✔I felt less stressed with one less platform to maintain!
✔I regretted nothing.
”

— Angela Hursh

In order to try and reach an audience beyond my usual networks, I’ve re-written the piece for the Times Higher, and it sits somewhere between the two versions above in length. If you’ve not already read one of the others, have a look and see if you can start the process of becoming ex-X.

Click the pic to view the article on the Times Higher website

If you’re interested you can read my previous piece for the Times Higher on how departments and orgs can get better at using Instagram, here.