Op Ed The Ivory Tower vs. the Dark Side: A Rebuttal to "Joining the Dark Side"
The April, 2012, issue of Against the Grain included an article by Laura Harris, "Joining the Dark Side,"1 which I read with interest.Harris described her transition from working in an academic library to working for Spring share, the developer and vendor for the wonderful LibGuides. The article held interest for me personally, since I experienced a similar change earlier in my career.I had spent seven years in academic libraries when I received an unexpected and unsolicited job offer from EBSCO Subscription Services (later EBSCO Information Services) Like Laura,I had not considered working for a vendor. Well, that's not quite true. I had actually talked with a couple of folks at EBSCO before, but only for a possible position at their headquarters in Birmingham, AL. I thought I was completely uninterested in any sort of customer facing position. And yet,that is what I ended up doing (in three different positions) for fifteen years!