Some of the best meals I have evereaten were paid for by sales representativesfrom companies withwhich my library did business orcould potentially do business, andsome of my favorite events atprofessional meetings were sponsoredby vendors. As the head of atechnical services department in alarge academic health sciences libraryin the 1980s, I had manyopportunities to be ‘‘wined anddined’’ by sales representatives,and I even developed close personalrelationships with a few ofthem. As nagging doubts about thepropriety of these activities beganbothering me, I sometimes ‘‘reciprocated’’with giving small gifts,such as bottles of wine, or bypaying for the meal myself. Mydoubts about the propriety of theseactivities were solidified in 1990,when I started working in a libraryfor a large federal agency that wasembroiled in an influence-peddlingscandal. I realized duringmy first day of work, when I hadto take an oath to accept absolutelynothing from companies withwhich the agency might do business,that I needed to be even morecareful about how I interacted withvendors.
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