How Libraries and Publishers are Advancing Accessible Scholarly Publishing Amidst Evolving Legislation

Duration: 51 mins
Publication Date: May 2025

About the session

During this session, we will explore themes including how authors can best contribute to accessibility, the opportunities and limitations presented by automation and Generative AI, and the intersection between accessibility and copyright.

Collection

Annual Meeting (2025)

Speakers

Associate Director of Global Strategic Partnerships, Wiley

Jude Perera, Associate Director for Global Partnerships at Wiley in Berlin, brings over nine years of experience in publishing, marketing, and partnerships to his role. Known for creating the Research Impact Podcast and fostering collaboration among diverse stakeholders, he leads discussions on crucial industry topics including AI, Open Access, and Accessibility. Through his content creation and industry engagement, he actively promotes and empowers accessibility initiatives, driven by his conviction that scholarly content should enable every researcher and student to engage fully with academic materials. As a committed member of the Society for Scholarly Publishing, ALPSP, APE and other industry organizations, he actively contributes to advancing these critical themes and practices within scholarly communications.
Director of Scholarly Communication & Open Publishing, Indiana University Libraries

Karen Stoll Farrell is Director of Scholarly Communication and Open Publishing at Indiana University Libraries, Bloomington, where they were previously the Librarian for South and Southeast Asian Studies. They hold an MA in South Asian Studies from the University of Pennsylvania, an MLIS from Wayne State University, and a BA in Anthropology from Kalamazoo College. Currently, their research is focused on feminist management practices and on disability equity, including equity in scholarly communications and for neurodiverse librarians, specifically. They are active in work incorporating equitable values into open access practices. Their most recent publication, coauthored with nicholae cline, is “Envisioning Leadership: Principles of Feminist Management in Practice” a chapter in Critical Library Leadership (2024).
Senior Product Manager, Content Accessibility, Elsevier, B.V.

Simon Holt is Senior Product Manager for Content Accessibility at Elsevier, where he leads work making books, journals, video and audio accessible to people with disabilities. As a sight impaired person himself, accessibility is important to him personally as well as professionally. He has worked in scholarly publishing for over 15 years, working with authors and editors, and is involved in several industry initiatives including serving as a Director for the Society of Scholarly Publishing, a member of an Advisory Board for the Royal National Institute for Blind People and as a Trustee for the sight-loss charity MyVision Oxfordshire. He lives in Oxford, UK.
Director of Information Policy and Federal Relations, Association of Research Libraries

As a member of the ARL Scholarship and Policy team, Katherine Klosek formulates Association positions on key information policy debates, and develops and implements advocacy strategies to advance the Association’s legal and public policy agenda in legislative, administrative, and judicial forums. Building strong partnerships with stakeholders in libraries, higher education, scholarship, and civil society, she represents the Association in outreach to policy makers on Capitol Hill and in the executive branch. Serving as the staff lead to ARL’s Advocacy and Public Policy Committee, Katherine helps mobilize ARL’s membership to influence government policy–making in key moments, and in responding and adapting to major legal and policy developments.
Director, University of Michigan Press, University of Michigan

Charles manages the Publishing division of the U-M Library (publishing.umich.edu) which is composed of three parts - University of Michigan Press (UMP), Michigan Publishing Services (MPS), and Deep Blue repository and research data services (DBRRDS). Professionally, he has worked at University of Michigan since 2014. Previously he was in a similar position at Purdue University Libraries and Director of Publications at the American School of Classical Studies at Athens. He has have a BA/MA from University of Cambridge in Archaeology and Anthropology and an MBA from Oxford Brookes University.