Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act Delayed for One Year

By Debra Lau Whelan -- School Library Journal, 2/2/2009 12:44:00 PM

Public and school libraries can breathe a sigh of relief—implementation of the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA), which was set to go into effect on February 10, has been extended for another year.

While this is a positive first step, the American Library Association (ALA) is asking librarians to hang tight, because ALA is still lobbying hard to exempt children’s books from the law, which requires kids’ books to be tested for harmful byproducts.

Under CPSIA, passed by Congress in August 2008, children’s products—including ordinary, paper-based books for kids 12 years old and younger—are required to undergo stringent testing for lead and phthalates, dangerous substances added to plastics to increase their flexibility.

That means if the current law goes into effect on February 10, 2010, all children’s books on public and school library shelves would be required to be removed for testing. If not, kids 12 and under would be banned from visiting these facilities.

ALA, along with publishers, teachers, and booksellers, has lobbied hard in recent weeks to have books excluded from the law—and all those letters, meetings, and testimonials to Congress has resulted in a temporary reprieve.

“Libraries now have a little room to breathe, but this announcement is not an end to this problem,” says Emily Sheketoff, executive director of ALA’s Washington office. “Since we know children’s books are safe, libraries are still asking to be exempt from regulation under this law.”

In discussions with attorneys, other associations, and sponsors of the original bill, ALA says it believes that “neither the law nor the legislative history indicates any Congressional intention to include books and even textbooks in the law.”

ALA, however, makes clear that it is seeking exemption for ordinary paper books and not books that kids can play with, such as those that have toys attached to them. As a result, librarians have already started taking action in anticipation of the February 10 deadline. Barbara Brand, a youth services manager at Johnson County Library in Kansas, asked other librarians on the Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC) electronic message boards whether anyone was removing toys, puzzles, and puppets from their children’s area due to the CPSIA ruling.

Andrea Johnson, a youth services manager at Northbrook Public Library in Illinois, wrote that her library is having its circulating puzzles and in-house toys tested by an XRF scanning service and getting rid of its “stash” of old prizes.

And Charlotte Johnston, children’s services coordinator at Dorchester County Library in Summerville, SC, wrote that she’s planning to remove toys, puppets, and other “manipulatives” from the library’s early literacy kits.

“We are actually going through our kit (we have 200) item by item and finding that some toys (fortunately) have already been tested, or are not made of the materials in question,” Johnston wrote on the message board. “We will have to use some of our book budget to replace the items we remove, but feel the cost is worth it in the end.”

Sheketoff says ALA will continue to work with Congress and the Consumer Product Safety Commission to ensure that a year from now “this matter is resolved once and for all, and America’s libraries remain open and welcoming to children.”

“While the CPSC and Congress continue to toss the burden of responsibility back and forth, libraries are caught in the middle,” Sheketoff adds.