YorkshireYankee,

Thanks for your reply. Firstly, I apologise if my response seemed unduly antogonistic. I didn't mean it to, although I'll admit that I get somewhat frustrated with these (doubtlessly) well-meaning, but ultimately futile petitions.

As far as my assertion regarding books/electric shocks is concerned, my point was that in order to get a static discharge, you need to touch something with high electrical conductivity (ie metal) not an insulator such as paper/cardboard.

I did briefly glance at your link, but when I saw that it referred to the USA, and that your issue was specifically with UK practices, I felt it irrelevant to the discussion, and did not read further.

Had you said that, "[employees] get an electric shock every time they touch a shelf", I wouldn't have called it ridiculous.

Do you have any evidence that a similar situation applies in the UK?

Ed