CPSC Demands that Libraries Remove Books

Posted by Valerie on March 17, 2009

Lead is Feared in Children’s Books

Could a vintage, dog-eared copy of “The Cat in the Hat” or “Where the Wild Things Are” be hazardous to your children?

The Consumer Product Safety Commission has raised that possibility in urging the nation’s libraries to take children’s books printed before 1986 off their shelves while the federal agency investigates whether the ink contains unsafe levels of lead.

Few, if any, libraries are complying, and many librarians are ridiculing the recommendation as alarmist. Even the nation’s premier medical sleuths, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, say any danger from lead in children’s books is slight.

“We’re talking about tens of millions of copies of children’s books that are perfectly safe. I wish a reasonable, rational person would just say, `This is stupid. What are we doing?’” said Emily Sheketoff, executive director of the American Library Association’s Washington office….

CPSC spokesman Scott Wolfson said libraries can safely lend any children’s book printed in 1986 or later…. Until the testing is done, the nation’s more than 116,000 public and school libraries “should take steps to ensure that the children aren’t accessing those books,” Wolfson said. “Steps can be taken to put them in an area on hold until the Consumer Product Safety Commission can give further guidance.”

But Jay Dempsey, a health communications specialist at the CDC, said lead-based ink in children’s books poses little danger.

“If that child were to actually start mouthing the book — as some children put everything in their mouths — that’s where the concern would be,” Dempsey said. “But on a scale of one to 10, this is like a 0.5 level of concern.”

So I called the offices of Congressman Paul Ryan, Senator Russ Feingold, Senator Herb Kohl, and Congressman Henry Waxman AGAIN.

The usual responses. Sigh.

Our town is just 1000 people, and our local library is tiny, tiny! Our library can’t sequester masses of children’s books without hurting kids.

BTW, three of my children made a little promotional video for our tiny library this week. (In spite of a one second sound loss at the end, they won a $25 Itunes gift card for their video! WOOHOO! I’m so proud of them!)

Kelsey (Anne Howard) and Kate (Ambrosia Ninny) are my daughters, as is the videographer, Kristen. You can see most all of the library in this video, btw. It doesn’t take much imagination to see that removing books would really hurt it–and our community.