Join the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) Libraries’ Office of Scholarly Communication for our 4th annual panel celebrating International Open Access Week 2025.

Using this year’s theme, Who Owns Our Knowledge, as a backdrop, panelists will discuss what it means to their libraries’ mission and services. We will also explore how libraries help faculty and students understand their rights as authors and creators, and how they help them to retain ownership of their intellectual property. We will wrap-up by looking ahead at how each panelist envisions the future of libraries as stewards and promoters of knowledge ownership. A Q & A session will immediately follow.

This event is co-sponsored by the UAB Libraries, the UAH Salmon Library, the Georgia State University Library, the Mississippi State University Libraries, and the Alabama Library Association Scholarly Communication Round Table. 

Panelists

Megan Bean, JD
Professor of Practice, Copyright & Information Policy Specialist
Mississippi State University Libraries

Megan Bean serves on Mississippi State University Libraries’ Schol Comm team as the Copyright & Information Policy Specialist (Professor of Practice). Megan’s expertise is grounded in her JD from Duke Law, where she first fell in love with the complexity of copyright law. Her copyright perspective is further informed by stints as a big firm litigation associate in Los Angeles and as a university photographer. Megan aims to keep her current copyright dream job aligned with thoughtful global copyright policy; to that end, she’s an active member in the UIPO (University Information Policy Officers) professional organization.

Laura Burtle, JD, MLIS
Associate Dean
Georgia State University Library

Laura Burtle is an Associate Dean in the Georgia State University Library, with responsibility for Collections & Discovery, Resource Acquisitions, Digital Library Services, and Scholarly Communications. She provides copyright guidance to students and faculty, including teaching about fair use and permissions and understanding publication contracts and open access. She earned an M.S. in Library Science from the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, and a J.D. from Georgia State University, with a Certificate in Intellectual Property Law.

April Urban, PhD, MLIS
Instructional Services & Scholarly Communications Librarian
M. Louis Salmon Library, University of Alabama in Huntsville

April Urban is Instructional Services and Scholarly Communications Librarian at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, where she is also the subject librarian for the College of Nursing and the Departments of English and Sociology. At UAH, April teaches library instruction sessions and promotes open access, OER, and open data library initiatives. April has a PhD in English Literature from Purdue University and a Master's in Library Science from Indiana University Bloomington. Her research interests include critical information literacy, knowledge organization, and digital literacy.

Moderator

Jeff Graveline, JD, MLIS
Professor and Associate Dean for Research and Scholarly Communication
Director of the UAB Libraries’ Office of Scholarly Communication
UAB Libraries