Both sides of the desk

I publish what I find about the library industry, and I publish the sources behind it. Every document I relied on is in the source index, linked, so you can read it yourself instead of taking my word for it. If I get something wrong, email me: [email protected]. I'd rather correct it than defend it, and the correction goes on the page.

I'm Sam Chada. I came up on the vendor side and stayed long enough to quit pretending it was neutral. I was OverDrive employee #70, back when we were still teaching librarians how to reset Windows DRM so patrons could sideload audiobooks. Weekdays I worked for the vendor. Saturdays I did my MLIS practicum at the public library down the road. Same seven days, both sides of the same vendor call, and they were not selling the same product.

That split is the whole story. Almost twenty years later I've sat on most sides of it: vendor support and project management, the public library director's chair, customer success for the companies that send libraries the invoice. I have an MLIS and an MBA, the second one out of pocket and on purpose, because vendor contracts are written in a financial language libraries aren't trained to read. Now I build the alternatives instead of selling the problem.

Where I've been

The short version, both sides of the desk:

• OverDrive (2008-2011). Employee #70, support then project management, helping libraries stand up their first ebook collections. In the room when the pricing models shifted.
• Sandusky Library (2011-2015). Communications & Technologies Director. Built lending programs, secured $250,000 in grants, launched Wi-Fi and Roku lending. (Library Journal Mover & Shaker, 2012; Ohio Library Council Innovation Award, 2015.)
• Wayne County Public Library (2015-2017). Assistant Director. System-level vendor management and technology strategy.
• collectionHQ / Baker & Taylor (2017-2021). Customer Success Manager. Started on collectionHQ, then the full digital portfolio through Follett's restructuring.
• Dutchie (2021-2022). Senior Customer Success. Cannabis compliance, helping people navigate systems instead of lock-in.
• Trellis Law (2022-2024). Director of Customer Success. Renewals for law libraries and Am Law 100 firms, the same vendor playbook I'd watched in library tech, different industry.

How this site is organized

The research and money-trail work lives in two open investigations: The ebook industry, who owns, prices, and profits from library ebooks, and Vendor watch, how library vendors' pricing, licensing, and ownership decisions land on libraries and patrons. Everything else, explainers, build logs, shorter field notes, lives in the posts archive without an investigation attached. Behind all of it is the source index: the documents I worked from, so a finding can be checked rather than just believed.

Building

I build the open alternatives instead of just writing about them: l/30, a full library system a library can actually own, and MetisLib, an ebook co-op for indie authors and libraries. Posts about that work show up in the archive alongside everything else, the good calls and the trade-offs both.

How this site treats you

No newsletter. No trackers. No popup asking for your email before you've read a sentence. Want to talk? [email protected] goes to a real inbox, not a form. I answer, though it may take a day or two.