QUICK TAKES - Feb. 28, 2009

The longtime head of the book publishers’ trade association is stepping down.

Former Democratic Rep. Pat Schroeder of Colorado, who has served 12 years as president and chief executive of the Assn. of American Publishers, said Friday that it was time for her “to move on.”

She will be succeeded in April by former Rep. Tom Allen, a Democrat from Maine who served six terms before losing last year in an effort to unseat incumbent Sen. Susan Collins, a Republican.

Picked in 1997 to help boost the group’s profile, Schroeder, 68, has been an energetic advocate for copyright protection, clashing with Google and even with libraries over the distribution of digital texts.