Ann Okerson, an expert on copyright from the Association of Research Libraries, will discuss Copyright, the Legislative Agenda.
Ann Okerson is Director, Office of Scientific & Academic Publishing for the Association of Research Libraries (ARL), an organization that represents and works for the interests of the 119 largest research libraries in the USA and Canada. She is senior program officer with a publishing-related portfolio. The position requires her to be informed of how and where research libraries obtain publications and information, how those industries work, to convey information and issues to ARL members, and in turn convey their needs and priorities -- preferably through dialog and collaborative projects -- to the information provider community. She works with publishers of all kinds, individual and organizationally based, particularly those who provide information through innovative, electronic (Internet) means.
Ms Okerson is an active member of the Coalition for Networked Information, and is a member of a number of task forces and committees dealing with issues such as intellectual property, digital publishing, and preservation. Prior to joining ARL in 1990, she worked for 16 years in a research library (serials, acquisitions, collections development) and five years in a commercial publishing and bookselling firm in New York (Wall Street Research reports on the one hand; estates and book collections on the other).