Kara Malenfant is Senior Strategist for Special Initiatives at ACRL where she coordinates: government relations advocacy, developing strategies to influence legislation affecting academic and research libraries; scholarly communication activities, working with librarians in all types of academic libraries to accelerate the transition to a more open system of scholarship; and the Value of Academic Libraries initiative, to help libraries demonstrate alignment with and impact on institutional outcomes through programs such as ACRL’s three-year IMLS funded “Assessment in Action: Academic Libraries and Student Success.†Additionally, Kara co-leads the ACRL Consulting Services Program, where she brings expertise in leadership, change, futures thinking, and scenario development. Prior to coming to ACRL in 2005, Kara was an academic librarian for 6 years and worked in the international humanitarian aid sector. She earned a Ph.D. in leadership and change from Antioch University and a M.S. in library and information science from the University of Illinois–Urbana-Champaign.
