Posted on December 2, 2002 at 2:15 p.m.

BIRMINGHAM, AL — Jerry Stephens, Ph.D., librarian and director of the Mervyn H. Sterne Library at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) has been named to the Online Computer Library Center (OCLC) Board of Trustees. The OCLC Members Council elected Stephens to the board in October.

OCLC is a nonprofit organization that provides computer-based cataloging, reference, resource sharing and preservation services to 43,000 libraries in 86 countries and territories. Together, libraries and OCLC have built WorldCat, the world's largest database of bibliographic information. OCLC also publishes the Dewey Decimal Classification system, the most widely used library classification system in the world.

Stephens was elected as a delegate to the OCLC Members Council in 1997 and in 2000 as a representative of the Southeastern Library Network (SOLINET), a membership network affiliated with OCLC. He was president of the Members Council during the 2001-2002 term. Stephens has been chairman of the Network of Alabama Academic Libraries and a member of the Alabama Virtual Library Steering Committee and Council.

He earned his undergraduate and Master of Business Administration degrees from UAB. He completed his master's in library science and Ph.D. in Administration and Higher Education at the University of Alabama.