Kidding About Blogs

I don't know about you guys, but if I never see a "gumby" style cat or dog toy again it will be too soon! Thanks to all of you for your promptness in dealing with the need to call all those parents and kids. I know it was a lot of work, and that it wasn't fun but was stressful. I appreciate the time you took to do it. On the administration front Tracey, Laura and I have fielding phone calls and questions most of the day. ( Oh, and emails, let's not forget the emails.)

If you haven't already seen news about it, you can expect to see some on channel 5, perhaps channel 19 and in the Enquirer. The Batavia Branch staff got stuck handling the channel 5 reporters today as well as photographers from the Enquirer. Angi R. was thrown into the role of impromptu library interviewee, and she did a wonderful job. I'm very proud of her.

Tracey and Laura should have sent out additional information today on talking points and agencies to contact. I know that Julie's on top of the website. It was a slow news day today apparently, and everyone seems to be picking up on it. (Gee it would be nice if someone else in the world had a crisis that needed to be reported on.) The Board is aware of the situation, and has been satisifed with the staff response. I've made a point of telling them how quickly staff responded to the crisis.

The interesting aspect of this is the email I got from OLC late this afternoon. Apparently they had just been notified about it. Their recommendation was to do nothing until Highsmith re-tested the product (about 4 weeks). They also recommended that if anything else had to be done, it be very low key and to limit library actions to consulting legal council. I let them know what we have already done, because it doesn't fit their suggestions at all. They are NOT going to be happy with us, but in this case, I don't think their advice is sound.

I'm amazed at how quickly word on this item got out via the internet in the first place. We were already getting phone calls from members of the public yesterday before we decided to do a voluntary recall of the item. I think Tracey was probably one of the first people to fill out a request for testing on the item. One county agency picked up a few of the toys today to test them. I get updates on library articles in the news from google on a daily basis, and today's articles indicate that there are libraries in Indiana, Oregon, Michigan, Ohio, Wyoming and I'm assuming Illinois that are recalling the item.

With luck, some other library will do something spectacular in a day or two and this will become old news. In the meantime, you guys are great! Thanks for the work you put into this process.