HeyBub wrote:
E Z Peaces wrote:
HeyBub wrote:
Here's just one example of the Draconian regulations: All books
published before 1986 are PRESUMED to contain lead. This means that
ALL children's books published more than twenty years ago: a) Have
to be removed from library shelves, and b) either destroyed or
tested for lead. Inasmuch as lead testing for a single book is
expensive, the only option is the first. Oh, yeah, the books cannot be
sold.
No second-hand stuff must be tested. It's not supposed to be sold if
there's reason to believe it exceeds limits, but there are no
penalties.
The ban is not on "selling" it is on "distributing" which includes selling,
donating, loaning, trading, or any other transfer.
According to the OED, to distribute is to supply a retailer.
If you chase all the statutes and amendments, you'll find the maximum civil
penalty to be $1,250,000.00 or imprisonment up to one year.
It has nothing to do with libraries unless libraries are selling
books. If the law is changed to prohibit lending, it will be about
books more than 25 years old. I used to work in the children's department
of an old municipal library. We had nothing 25 years old. I don't
remember anything even 10 years old. Children are rough on library
books.
Nope:
"In the District [of Columbia], the law means that more than a sixth --
110,000 of 650,000 -- of the children's books on the shelves might have to
be removed. And in these tight financial times, replacing those books could
be a serious problem."
Might. You said distributing includes loaning.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...T2009032302266
I guess you didn't notice I referred to Davenport in answering you
earlier. 'Children's books stay on the shelf longer because they remain
popular, she said. "You could walk into almost any children's library
and you'd see the same books that you just adored when you were a kid."'
Accurate but not true. "Cat in the Hat" has been on library shelves 50
years, but the copy you see was probably purchased in the last 3 years.
Books remain popular because kids tend to check out what adults
recommend. A book like "Cat in the Hat" may go out more than 30 times a
year, getting dropped, sat on, handled with dirty hands, etc, etc. In
25 years that would be 750 cycles. Do you really think libraries have
many children's book that old?