Books Might Be Hit By New Legislation

thebookseller.com:

Unless that is extended by the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) in the US, publishers will be required to ensure third-party testing of finished books and products. Publishers currently have substrates tested during the production process rather than testing the finished book.

Read the whole story: thebookseller.com

Comments

[billstewart]

11:48 PM on 01/16/2011

Hi, editors! Your article wasn't really written in English, but it had a reference to the original article which was.
The Consumer Products Safety Commission published a bunch of rules to protect children from lead and other toxins in their toys, because of the problems with imported Chinese toys using lead paint. Those rules also apply to children's books - if the rules are enforced strictly, publishers will have to get independent lead paint testing on every different book they publish, which would be a total disaster for small-volume price-sensitive publishing like children's books. There are some temporary rules which have let publishers get all their materials tested (paper, inks, book covers, etc.) that don't require testing each book title as long as they're using safe materials, but those rules may be expiring and the publishers may get hit really hard.

There's a separate issue of "books might be hit by new legislation" around - Utah's got a proposed bill to regulate pawnshops to prevent theft, which requires significant paperwork for each item to demonstrate that it's not stolen, and it appears to apply to used book stores and thrift shops, where there not only isn't enough profit margin to support it, but where they usually have a much larger existing inventory than pawn shops that could also be affected. So used book stores in Utah are under a serious threat.