Sunday, April 1st, 2012

Important Policy Change

Effective immediately, LibraryThing will no longer be including lean finely textured beef (commonly referred to as “pink slime”) in any of our products. We have revised all page designs and source code so that this product is no longer required for smooth operation of the site.

Over the past several weeks many members have written to us expressing their concern about the use of boneless lean beef trimmings on LibraryThing. While the USDA and food industry experts agree that lean finely textured beef is perfectly safe, recent media reports have caused considerable consumer concern about this product. We have concluded that in response to member concerns, we must take steps to ensure that this product is not used anywhere on the site, and have worked diligently to make the necessary changes to LibraryThing.com. That process is now complete.

We at LibraryThing would like to thank all those who took the time to express their concerns about this product.

UPDATE: It appears that small quantities of pink slime have continued to seep from the LibraryThing user interface. We blame a supplier, and will be working to remove any and all interface slime as soon as possible.

UPDATE: April Fools is over, so the slime-drip is gone. Click on the image below to see what it looked like:

Labels: openness

18 Comments:

  1. Lorle says:

    I am so relieved to hear this! I love me some LibraryThing! Now it is less slimy too! Good Work LT! 🙂

  2. kath says:

    What a relief! I have been plagued with worry since
    the reports surfaced.. Leave it to LT to step up and do the right thing. Thank you!

  3. Johan Anglemark says:

    Another concession to the Feminist Islamic Vegan Pinko-Liberal crowd. I’m disappointed in your Un-American stance on this issue.

  4. Allan Bealy says:

    If it was good enough for Tolstoy, it’s good enough for me!

  5. sari says:

    Hey, it can’t be any worse than other things we eat. Isn’t this body part discrimination? I will have no part it that!

  6. jpporter says:

    I’m crushed. I’m devastated. When they pulled pink slime from school menus I thought that there would be at least one sanctuary where one could encounter the sublimely unpalatable. And now you have taken that from us. This leaves no recourse but for my wife’s cooking.

    You should be ashamed of yourselves.

  7. Mariah2 says:

    Awesome! I can now rest easy at night knowing that LibraryThing is slimeless.

  8. jaymee says:

    now this is really what makes Librarything fun. 🙂

  9. JalenV says:

    Love the dripping pink slime in the upper right corner!

  10. africansky1 says:

    Wow the date does not go unnoticed but pink slime is a universal material essential to books. We shall miss it but you are being absolutely correct in tis action

  11. Janette says:

    Hahahaha! Thanks — I needed that!

  12. Guurtje says:

    What about the 1st of April – April Fool?

  13. Danie says:

    Heh… that was funny. When I saw it in the blogroll on the main page I was like, ‘oh crap’.

    And it’s good that you’re not using it… ’cause I’m pretty sure Pink slime is bad for all books, both print (pink pages) and e-books (fried pages)

  14. Chuck Gilbert says:

    Does that include Slimeballs?

  15. Rebecca Brooks-White says:

    funny Jeremy!Very funny!

  16. yolana says:

    thanks for the laugh.

  17. Are you sure you can do all you do without Pink Slime?

  18. AnnaClaire says:

    Trust me it isn’t just the *pink* slime you gotta worry about…

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