American Library Association

The CPSIA not only has crafters, WAHMs and small businesses in an uproar across the nation, but librarians too. It brings to mind a t-shirt owned by my favorite librarian (our neighbor) that reads "don't make me use my librarian voice."

from ALA.org:

http://www.ala.org/ala/aboutala/offices/wo/woissues/governmentinfo/cpsia/index.cfm

The ALA Washington Office has submitted a letter to Congress informing them that,

“The publishing community has supplied the Commission with evidentiary support (can be viewed at www.rrd.com/cpsia) that books and other non-book, paper-based printed materials should not be subject to the lead, phthalate, and applicable ASTM standards that are referenced in CPSIA because they do not present any of the health or safety risks to children that the law intended to address. But the General Counsel rejected the Publisher’s request to be excluded.

If the CPSIA is applied to books and paper-based materials, as indicated by the Commission’s General Counsel, public, school and museum libraries will have to either remove all their books or ban all children under 12 from visiting. This cannot be what the Congress intended…. They should enforce this important legislation where the dangers are, not with books, which are not playthings, and should remain unregulated.”