BY TOM HENDERSON
GAZETTE-TIMES REPORTER | Posted: Wednesday, October 22, 2008 12:00 am
Not even Muppets safe from patron complaints
Oh, those adorable Muppets.
So cute, so cuddly so … oh, my goodness!
The woman who checked out a Muppet DVD from the Corvallis-Benton County Public Library expected Kermit and Miss Piggy.
What she got was a different kind of Muppet magic, "The Mating Rites of the Planet Koosbane."
She found some of the dialogue sexually suggestive enough to make Cookie Monster blush.
The woman complained about such material being available to young library visitors. Her complaint is typical, Library Director Carolyn Rawles-Heiser said. What the library has - at times - is a failure to communicate.
Before Fozzie Bear and Miss Piggy capered across TV screens on "The Muppet Show," puppeteer Jim Henson and company performed skits on "Saturday Night Live" and other adult-oriented shows. Some scenes were definitely not suited for younger viewers. The collection available at the library offered some of those classic Muppet moments.
The Corvallis-Benton County Public Library gets an unusual amount of complaints and concerns about its book, movie and music selections, Rawles-Heizer told members of the City Council's Human Services Committee on Tuesday. The average is about 10 complaints per year, she said.
"We get more complaints in one year than I got in all of my career before coming here."
That's not necessarily a bad thing, she said. "We have an active, engaged community."
Taffey Anderson of Halsey took her differences with the Central Linn High School library beyond complaining. After her 13-year-old son checked out "The Book of Bunny Suicides," she took offense at the book's irreverent cartoons of rabbits committing suicide. She decided not to return the book and to campaign against the library getting a new copy.
Complaints in Corvallis don't get that dramatic, Rawles-Heizer said. Almost none of the complaints reach the City Council, she said. Library staff members deal with them as they come up. Most of the problems arise because of misunderstandings and are easily resolved, Rawles-Heizer said.
Take the Muppets. Librarians explained the difference between the Muppets as seen on "Sesame Street" and "Saturday Night Live." With assurance that the DVD would not be shelved beside movies for young children, the woman's complaint was satisfied.
Another patron objected to the library offering the men's magazine Maxim. The magazine features scantily clad women on its covers and feature pages. Usually, Rawles-Heizer said, people just want to know alternative material is available.
It usually is, she said. "We're here to provide a wide range of information," she said. "We have a very wide spectrum."
Some material definitely is not for children. However, Rawles-Heizer said librarians are not supposed to be substitute parents. They don't hover over children to watch what they read or look up on the Internet. Parents are supposed to monitor their children's behavior, she said.
A number of complaints revolve around material for older children being in the same area of the library as books for the preschool crowd. The materials are actually separate, Rawles-Heizer said, but once again the responsibility for safeguarding children falls to their parents.
Librarians deal with a dizzying amount of material. They take in 30,000 to 35,000 new items per year. They retire considerably fewer items than they take in, Rawles-Heizer said. "That's one of the reasons the library is overcrowded and will one day need to be expanded," she said.
People are free to complain about anything they want, she added.
"We respect people's right to question our material."