DUBLIN, Ohio, USA, 14 November 2012. Barbara Lison, Director of the Bremen Public Library in Bremen, Germany, has been elected to the OCLC Board of Trustees by the Board, and new leaders and new members began serving on the Board during a regular meeting November 3-5 in Dublin.
Ms. Lison has been Director of the Bremen Public Library since 1992. In 1999, she was also appointed CEO of the Public Enterprise Bremen Public Library. Ms. Lison has served as President of Bibliothek Information Deutschland, the national umbrella organization of German library and information associations, and is currently an Executive Committee member of the German Library Association. She is a member of IFLA's Governing Board and has held many leadership positions in the European Bureau for Libraries, Archives and Documentation Associations. She holds university degrees in Slavonic studies, history and educational theory from Ruhr-Universität Bochum.
Ms. Lison replaces Elisabeth Niggemann, Director General of the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek (DNB- German National Library), who served two four-year terms on the OCLC Board beginning in November 2004.
Sandy Yee, Dean of the Wayne State University Libraries and Library and Information Science Program, was elected Chair of the OCLC Board of Trustees, replacing Larry Alford, Chief Librarian, University of Toronto Libraries, who served as Chair from 2007 to 2012. Mr. Alford will continue serving as a member of the Board.
Bernadette Gray-Little, Chancellor, University of Kansas, was elected Vice Chair, OCLC Board of Trustees. She replaces Edward W. Barry, President Emeritus, Oxford University Press, who previously served as Vice Chair of the Board. He will continue to serve as a member of the Board.
Ms. Yee welcomed new Board members Loretta Parham, CEO and Library Director of the Atlanta University Center Robert W. Woodruff Library, and Jennifer Younger, Executive Director, Catholic Research Resources Alliance, who were both elected to the Board by Global Council in April.
The Board of Trustees passed resolutions to honor three former Board members, whose terms expired in November, for their loyal and diligent service to the OCLC cooperative. They included Ms. Niggemann; Bruce Newell, retired Director, Montana Library Network, who served on the Board since 2006; and Betsy Wilson, Dean of University Libraries, University of Washington, who served on the Board since 2000, and was Board Chair from 2003 to 2007. The Board passed a resolution recognizing Mr. Alford for his dedicated service and effective leadership as Chair of the Board.
"OCLC owes all of these accomplished leaders in the library community a deep debt of gratitude for their service," said Ms. Yee.
The OCLC Board of Trustees currently comprises 16 members. Ten of the 16 trustees currently serving on the OCLC Board of Trustees are librarians.
About OCLC
Founded in 1967, OCLC is a nonprofit, membership, computer library service and research organization dedicated to the public purposes of furthering access to the world's information and reducing library costs. More than 74,000 libraries in 170 countries have used OCLC services to locate, acquire, catalog, lend, preserve and manage library materials. Researchers, students, faculty, scholars, professional librarians and other information seekers use OCLC services to obtain bibliographic, abstract and full-text information when and where they need it. OCLC and its member libraries cooperatively produce and maintain WorldCat, the world's largest online database for discovery of library resources. Search WorldCat.org on the Web at www.worldcat.org. For more information, visit the OCLC website at www.oclc.org.