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Kara Malenfant, PhD, (she/her) is a Visiting Assistant Professor in the School of Information Studies at Dominican University. She previously worked at the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL, a division of the American Library Association) for nearly 18 years coordinating government relations advocacy, scholarly communication activities, ACRL's Value of Academic Libraries initiative, and leading the ACRL Consulting Services Program. Her 2010 case study about organizational change was chosen as one of seven landmark articles published in the leading scholarly journal College and Research Libraries over its 75-year history. Prior to working at ACRL, Kara was an academic librarian for 6 years and worked in international development. She started her career in education as a Peace Corps volunteer, teaching English as a second language at a community college in Armenia. Her doctoral dissertation focused on aiding academic librarians in examining the future of higher education and taking action to shape it.

Education
PhD, Antioch University
MS LIS, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
BA, Allegheny College
Selected Publications

Nichols Hess, A., Malenfant, K., and Hall, N. (Eds.). (2024). Topical Issue. College & Research Libraries, 85(1). 

Malenfant, K. and Goek, S. (2024). Characteristics of Academic Libraries, Library Instruction, and Student Outcomes: A Descriptive Analysis Focusing on Minority-Serving and Rural Institutions. In Parsons-Diamond, G. (Ed.), Five Years of Project Outcome for Academic Libraries. Chicago: Association of College and Research Libraries. American Library Association. 

Frisque, M. & Malenfant, K. (2023). Keeping Up With... Digital Equity Funding. Association of College and Research Libraries. American Library Association. Retrieved from https://www.ala.org/acrl/publications/keeping_up_with/digital_equity_funding

Gima, J. and Malenfant, K., eds. (2020). Library Partnerships in International Liberal Arts Education: Building Relationships Across Cultural and Institutional Lines. American Library Association. Retrieved from https://www.alastore.ala.org/content/library-partnerships-international-liberal-arts-education-building-relationships-across

Maron, N., Kennison, R., Bracke, P., Hall, N., Gilman, I., Malenfant, K., Roh, C. & Shorish, Y. (2019). Open and Equitable Scholarly Communications: Creating a More Inclusive Future. Association of College and Research Libraries. American Library Association. Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.5860/acrl.1

 

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