And not just any books. Kids books.
Here's the scoop:
CPSC Spells Out Enforcement Policy For New Lead Limits In Children’s Products Effective February 10
WASHINGTON, D.C. - Starting on February 10, 2009, consumer products intended for children 12 and under cannot have more than 600 parts per million of lead in any accessible part. This new safety requirement is a key component of the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA) aimed at further reducing children’s exposure to lead.
In an effort to provide clear and reasonable guidance to those impacted by this important law, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) is announcing its enforcement policy (pdf) on the lead limits established by the CPSIA.
Manufacturers, importers, distributors, and retailers should also be aware that CPSC will:
* Not impose penalties against anyone for making, importing, distributing, or selling
- a children’s product to the extent that it is made of certain natural materials (pdf), such as wood, cotton, wool, or certain metals and alloys which the Commission has recognized rarely, if ever, contain lead;
- an ordinary children’s book printed before 1985; or
- dyed or undyed textiles (not including leather, vinyl or PVC) and non-metallic thread and trim used in children’s apparel and other fabric products, such as baby blankets.
Don't get me wrong here. I'm all for protecting children. But banning all children's books published before 1985? The thought makes me want to cry.
Esther, over at Design Loft has a well thought-out look at what this law will mean for libraries.
At the end of her post she states:
And really, this starts to become silly. We don't regulate what books or audio visual materials a child can checkout. This brings our entire collection of 35,000 items under suspicion. What will the kids read while we are in the process of removing, testing, replacing thousands of books?
So our realistic choices are:
1. Shut down our children's section, or
2. Ban kids 12 and younger from the library.
Neither option seems a good one to me.
8 comments:
Oh this is just ridiculous! And truly sad...the mere thought of all of those books disappearing is so upsetting! By the way CJ, I wanted to thank you for your wonderful, supporting comment that you left me. I couldn't agree with you more...it helped me quite a bit.
I agree that this is an extreme law, but just to correct an important mistatement - it's books BEFORE, not AFTER 1985 that have the questionable lead content. I believe the application of the law to libraries has been placed on hold until 2010, so there should be a better resolution in the long run.
Chris -
It is a ridiculous law and hopefully it can be modified in some way.
And I'm glad I could help. I've been there in my own way. I'm confident you'll work it through.
Books2read -
Wow. Thanks for pointing that out. I just did a copy and paste and didn't even catch the obvious error. I will be correcting that.
I hope they can work things out. It would be horrible if any of the books I loved as a kid became unavailable.
cjh
Stupid Old Government. And, I can't even pin this on Obama!
Bureacracies i.e. individual bureaucrats often lose sight of reality. ie. suspending students for long perods of time for bring a squirt gun. Suspedning a second grader for sexual harassment etc. On the other hand fear mongering aginst our own government isn't helpful either. Common sense should be applied by all.Here are a few off the cuff suggest. Put a warning label on the books for "lead content." Have the parent sigh a waver for a book release to under 8 years olds. Require all such books to be banned have pornographic content before the head librarian can have them burned. err. ok Im getting off track like a bureaucrat.
Troutbider -
I don't know about you, but I grew up reading those books... and I'm doing just fine.
It's another over-reaction, as you say, especially when you consider that most of the recent problems with lead have been due to Chinese imports.
cjh
Mind-boggling, isn't it? I heard about this through Bookarama Chris's blog and I just sat there staring at the screen as I read about used bookstores pulping every pre-1985 children's book. That means every book we held in our hands as children. Every book our fathers and mothers and grandparents and every freaking ancestor ever held. There are no recorded incidents of lead poisoning from books, but people could be fined $100,000 for selling them? Are we in some kind of dystopian horror novel, here?
Bookfool -
It's a sad comment on our current society, isn't it? Paranoia and over-reaction seem to be the hallmark. And I'm with you; the thought of all those books being lost makes me want to cry.
cjh
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