Happy National Library Week. I have spent the first day of this nominal holiday on a self-appointed task of telling library advocates on social media that if they’re not using alt text with their images, they’re not actually supporting the full mission of libraries which is to serve everyone. You can join me. For anyone who shares the ALA poster, here’s a Bluesky-length reply that you can just copy and paste.
Alt text: A colorful illustration of the front of a library with a librarian waving to community members outside. A banner over the library reads "FIND YOUR JOY!" Logos for ALA and Library Champions in top right. Text below the illustration reads "Celebrate NATIONAL LIBRARY WEEK, April 19-25, 2026"
I got that alt text from this skeet which had a longer description. Nice work ALA, you nailed it. Yes, that’s Mychal in the little drawing. I’ve enjoyed seeing a lot of different alt texts for this poster image (which is everywhere today) because it means that people are writing it themselves. And I get it, sometimes there are bulk-posting tools which don’t do alt text correctly (Buffer, I am glaring in your direction) but that’s still ON YOU to figure it out. It’s hard because Bluesky specifically (unlike Mastodon or Instagram) doesn’t have post editing capabilities.
If you have more characters, the alt text for this image has a longer description. If you’re not really sure how to do alt text well, I have two things to say. First: any alt text is better than none (yes, even if an AI does it but I’d really suggest not doing that if you can, for many reasons). Second: this helpful post from the Perkins School for the Blind can give you useful information and I think is a good way to get started.
A few other very basic things you can do on social media for accessibility: caption videos you share, describe animated GIFs, don’t use weird funny characters which look like letters but aren’t, be sparing with ASCII illustrations, CamelCase your hashtags. I’m sure there are other good tips, but these are some basic ones. If your library is accessible, your social media content should be as well.