Hilarious. UK university H&S bans ladders to reach books. Library refuses to move books lower.

[flvegan]

ACADEMICS at Oxford University have banned step-ladders from its world famous Bodleian library – because of health and safety fears.

The ban means students are unable to reach books on the top shelves but dons refuse to bring them lower because it would remove them from their “original historic location”.

Students travel to libraries as far away as London to view other copies.

Step-ladders have been used by scholars to reach books in Duke Humfrey’s reading room for decades.

But the university’s health and safety officer put his foot down and they were removed two weeks ago.

Books on the top shelves include tomes about art history and poetry.

Art history student Kelsey Williams, 21, said: “Access to these books is necessary for my research.”

Laurence Benson, the library’s director of administration and finance, said: “The library would prefer to keep the books in their original historic location – where they have been safely consulted for 400 years prior to the instructions from the health and safety office.”

http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/99971/Library-puts-books-out-of-reach-

It would appear that Mr. Benson is giving health and safety rules a two-finger salute. I do think I know who is going to win this one.

:rofl:

[Deep13]

1. Oh for chrissake!

No one can be 100% safe all of the time.

[lizerdbits]

2. Safety has to work with LCD

Lowest common denominator. That's why they do stuff like this. There can be no accidents for years (or hundreds in this case) and suddenly some new person is hired that wants to make life difficult to prevent getting sued by an idiot. It sounds like I'm bashing safety officers in general which I'm not trying to do, but sometimes when they're not involved in the work you're doing they make really ridiculous rule changes that are a big waste of time and money.

[TZ]

8. Why does this story make me think about a certain Health and Saftety officer

We used to know..You know "Mr gotta look in the window from the parking lot to make sure everyone is wearing their safety glasses.."
:rofl:

[lizerdbits]

10. Yeah, well we solved that by being moved to the second floor

We had one where I work now that wanted us to wear tyvek aprons on top of our tyvek suits. We already over protect and he wanted us to wear them while working in the hood and change them when we left the rooms. I can see that with animal work since they sometimes get blood or other body fluids on themselves and could potentially contaminate equipment or other animals but for lab staff?! Luckily the head of safety is in Birmingham and that was shot down due to cost.

[mcctatas]

3. The students should just invest in stilts...

problem solved :P

[surrealAmerican]

4. ... or pile up books from lower shelves, and climb on them.

It's a creative thinking exercise for art history and poetry students.

[mcctatas]

5. ooohhhh...

I like your idea better! :applause:

[Ptah]

6. A couple of suggestions.

[InternalDialogue]

7. Well, Dikembe Mutombo is now retired. I guess if he's looking for something to do...

"Man does not climb to retrieve books... in the House of Mutombo."

[RoyGBiv]

9. Ladders ...

Can't use ladders now.

Dearlord.

Where's the facepalm smiley when you need it.