Anyone else think this BBC article is in poor taste?

[cheeseismydownfall]

Or am I just being miserable?

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-suffolk-52412655

I don't know, I just really don't like the idea of publicly sharing someone's mistake just to deliver a "light relief". The poor cleaner might be absolutely mortified and it seems really intellectually snobbish to have a god laugh just because someone doesn't understand the bloody dewy decimal system. Really nasty I think.

18 and a half bays of rearranged books it actually quite a bit of work to sort out. Hopefully she did just rearrange a long each shelf but still. Everyone tweets to let off steam, the press should do it’s bloody job of scrutinising governments not picking up rubbish off Twitter. Oh and I am a professional librarian and my first thought was argh followed by ‘well the person who really messed up is the one who did the training/induction of the cleaner.´ she should have been told not to move things.

Honestly - I’m with the librarian. It’s not sneery, it’s a ridiculous thing for the cleaner to have done and I think they were being very restrained.

The original tweet was bitchy. The article is patronising.

I loved it. Shows how style-conscious the cleaner is, and how squeaky librarians can (have to) be.

I hope the cleaner does the books by colour next week for a laff.

@RandomlyChosenName, my DH had a similar reaction.
He saw the photo with a caption and thought ‘Ah! Someone who is tidying books like I do!!’

But the article is crap. Patronising yes but also overlooking the fact it must have taken her ages to do that too as she clearly has put series together etc....

Well Ms Krystal Vittles has made a rather basic spelling mistake in her tweet. Perhaps someone could write an article about how ironic it is for a Head of Service Delivery to not proofread her own Tweets?

Bizarre, non-story story.

@QuestionMarkNow takes ages to classify a library too. We don’t use Dewey Decimal or other classification systems for fun. We use them to make books discoverable and to ensure topics are grouped together. When you have hundreds of thousands of books and different needs, you can’t just pick what looks best.

We don't know the state the cleaner found the books, were they just piled up on the floor? or what she was told to do, someone may have told her to put them in size order as a joke and she followed their request?
A very unnecessary tweet, at best extremely thoughtless.

Why couldnt one of the library staff on full pay at home go in to remove the books from the shelves ready for the cleaner to go in, and then once the cleaner had done there deep clean go in and pop them back on the shelves, sorted. Simple :) and yes the tweet is really condescending, eurgh.

@bouncey cos you have to clean around the books. And we’re not at home on full pay. We’re working from home.

The library service here is home on full pay, the only expectation is to update social media with book recommendations once a week. Not speculation, I work closely with them.

I agree OP. I felt really sorry for the cleaner and thought the article was unnecessary.

Oh I don't know, imagine having to resort a whole library of books. So while I do feel sorry for the cleaner it's a bit of a nightmare if it's all the shelves. Easy to say the catalogue system is silly but important for non-fiction. I'm not a librarian and I do find librarians not always the most generous spirited bunch but can see how this is a problem. Also all libraries shut and staff redeployed to covid supporting roles so not like they've got lots of spare time.

I agree OP. As a librarian I thought it was apalling to tweet this. The poor cleaner was doing her best in challenging times and she is likely to be easily identified from this. The original tweeter has now locked her account so I guess she is taking some flak over it.

Wow. I’m home, providing a service for students, recording online support, delivering zoom teaching, overhauling all our support to take it online for next year, urgently acquiring ebooks to supplement student access. Do you work with a public rather than a uni library?

The tweet isn't nice... Or perfect either *stated

Lol stared None of us are perfect. I feel bad for the cleaner who was trying to be helpful. Unkind and pointless.

It reads to me like an “and then everyone clapped” story. Only in this case “oh, the stupid cleaner”.

I’d be surprised if it was really all 18.5 bays of books. So sneery and exaggerated

Caveat. DH once tried to categorise my cookery book collection by size. I was not happy.

what a bloody stupid woman - cleaner or not

Ah, there it is. Where there's classism, sexism is never far behind. No where in the whole article does it say the cleaner was female, pictish. But I don't doubt that, like you, every one having a laugh at this cleaner's expense is also picturing a "bloody stupid woman". Maybe she's middle aged as well with a short haircut and a name like Pam or Linda, wouldn't that be hilarious. I'm sure there'll be a meme based on it circulating in no time.

@DrowsyDragon a public library. I am guessing you are university if you are doing that?

Also, in the picture they shared, they are fiction books. They are still all in the crime section and crime books. They’re just not all in alphabetical order (just in a nice tidy order!) but some are as all the ones by the same author are together. And it’s only 18.5 shelves. That’s hardly a massive job.

But however they had be been put back for whatever reason... the public shaming sneering tweet is awful. I can’t imagine how awful you’d need to be to think that was an ok thing to do.

The tweet is a bit OTT but rearranging 18.5 bays is a lot of work and yes it was a kind of stupid thing to do!

I'm glad I don't work for that woman, she obviously has no management skills and even less common sense. How did she think public mockery of an employee was any kind of acceptable?

I agree- in poor taste.

If the cleaner was having to do a deep clean, presumably it meant removing all the books from each shelf before cleaning the shelf. I don’t understand why the Librarian has such an issue because they’d have had to re-shelve the books anyway?

Were the books cleaned too?

I certainly don’t think it’s the cleaners job to carefully place them in the correct order. She just put them back on the shelves in a tidy fashion.