INDIANAPOLIS—The Private Academic Library Network of Indiana (PALNI) has announced that Executive Director Kirsten Leonard will retire from PALNI in December 2026 after 16 years of leadership. Following a national search, PALNI Associate Director Noah Brubaker has been named the organization’s next Executive Director and will assume the role upon Leonard’s retirement.
“Kirsten is a driven, visionary, strategic leader with the rare ability to also care deeply for those she leads and serves,” says Tonya Fawcett, Grace College Director of Library Services and PALNI board member. “You knew she wanted the PALNI libraries to thrive so they could serve their students well, but she also cared for and supported the people of PALNI. For me, both professionally and personally, working alongside her has been a highlight of my career.”
Leonard was appointed in 2010 as PALNI's first employee, joining a consortium that had operated for nearly two decades as a primarily technology-driven utility managed through contracted support. Over her tenure, she partnered with library deans, directors, and staff across Indiana's private colleges, universities, and seminaries to transform PALNI from a system-administration provider into a widely recognized model for deep institutional collaboration, open-source innovation, and nonprofit stewardship. Today, the consortium serves 23 supported institutions and roughly 40,000 students.
Highlights of PALNI's progress under Leonard's leadership include:
Leading the initiative to develop and operationalize the board-level Commitment to Deep Collaboration
Rolling out the RAPID decision-making framework, which designates who Recommends, Approves, Performs, provides Input, and Decides on cross-institutional work, to clarify roles and streamline collaboration across the consortium
Spearheading the consortium’s Open Systems Initiative to better support libraries’ needs while containing costs and allowing for more innovation and deeper collaboration
Growing PALNI’s shared staff from a single employee to a team of nine
Holding institutional cost-share fees relatively flat for 14 years while expanding shared services
Developing the PALNI Library Innovation Grant program, which funds up to $20,000 annually through the consortium to seed projects that scale across the PALNI libraries
Building external partnerships with other consortia and library groups to advance open access and shared collections
Co-leading "Hyku for Consortia," an initiative with the Partnership for Academic Library Collaboration & Innovation (PALCI), funded in part by the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), to advance and sustain open-source digital repositories
Establishing PALSave: The PALNI Affordable Learning Program, on track to save Indiana students $5 million, and supported by multiple grants from Lilly Endowment Inc.
- Launching a planning project in open bibliographic data management through a $225,000 American Rescue Plan Act grant
Under Leonard's leadership, PALNI has shown what academic libraries can achieve together, and that achievement belongs to its people. Across higher education, institutions face mounting pressure as costs rise, revenues tighten, and the pool of prospective students contracts. For smaller institutions in particular, the resources required to deliver high-quality library services can be difficult to sustain on their own. PALNI's response has been rooted in its library staff: professionals across supported institutions who solve problems together and take on consortium-wide work that strengthens every library, making excellent services possible at scale.
“Kirsten brought immense energy, vision, and commitment to PALNI at a pivotal moment in the consortium’s history,” says Dan Bowell, retired Taylor University Library Director and former PALNI Board member. “She became a dynamic catalyst for transforming PALNI into a more vibrant, integrative organization, grounded in grassroots participation and a deepened sense of collective ownership and responsibility. Kirsten introduced and helped define ‘deep collaboration’ for PALNI, creating a model in which supported libraries share not only resources but staff expertise, decision-making, and strategic planning. Her impact can be seen not only in what PALNI has become, but in the collaborative spirit and shared sense of purpose she cultivated among its members.”
This reflects a core philosophy: leadership is never a solo act, and in deep collaboration, everyone is essential. In 2014, as PALNI faced a major reassessment of its shared Integrated Library System (ILS), Leonard worked with the board and supported libraries in moving the consortium away from siloed operations toward a formalized framework of Deep Collaboration, a process that included hiring Brubaker to leverage shared expertise across PALNI. Leonard has emphasized that PALNI's strength comes not from its platforms or governance documents but from the librarians and staff across its 23 supported colleges, universities, and seminaries who choose to trust one another, share what they know, and take responsibility for outcomes well beyond their own campuses.
"I have seen this approach at work many times," Leonard says. "A colleague spends an afternoon sharing a workflow with staff in another library to save them time and effort. Staff at one library would rather ask a colleague at another before contacting a vendor, because they know they will get a more informed response from someone who has experienced the same problem. These moments are not incidental to PALNI's success. They are PALNI's success.”
"Kirsten's strong leadership and inclusive vision have been essential to bringing Deep Collaboration to fruition within PALNI," says Noah Brubaker, PALNI’s incoming Executive Director. "Kirsten's efforts have united and highlighted the expertise of the libraries, groups, and individuals as the engine for how we work together to serve with excellence the missions of PALNI institutions and support student success. Her tenure as executive director has enabled PALNI to thrive, and her work and achievements are highly respected by those within, partnering with, and beyond the consortium."
For roughly 14 years, PALNI kept the cost-share fees paid by its supported institutions largely flat, even as inflation and vendor pricing climbed. PALNI achieved this financial success through sustained effort: negotiating down vendor costs, pooling purchasing power, eliminating duplicated effort, and securing grants to research and develop more affordable, library-driven alternatives.
That collaborative approach also shaped PALNI's staffing model. Under Leonard, the consortium grew from a single employee to a team of nine shared staff, supplemented by a distributed model of contracted roles in areas such as analytics, cataloging, archives, and fulfillment. This structure allows librarians at supported institutions to lead consortium-wide work and draw on their frontline experience, building expertise across the network while keeping overhead low.
PALNI's commitment to educational equity and open access has transformed textbook affordability across Indiana. With Leonard championing the Scholarly Communications Director role and hiring Amanda Hurford to lead it, PALNI established PALSave, the PALNI Affordable Learning Program, in 2019. PALSave empowers faculty to review, adopt, and create Open Educational Resources (OER), free and openly licensed course materials. The program has drawn more than $2.1 million from Lilly Endowment Inc. across multiple awards. While those resources were secured at the organizational level, the true engine of PALSave has been the faculty and librarians across PALNI schools who stepped forward together. To date, their collective work is on track to save Indiana students $5 million, with textbook savings reaching tens of thousands of students.
PALNI's collaborative work has extended well beyond Indiana. In partnership with PALCI and its executive director, Jill Morris, PALNI co-leads a cross-consortial initiative, backed by multiple IMLS grants, to advance the development of the Hyku repository under Hurford's direction. The Hyku for Consortia project expands affordable, open-source institutional repositories and demonstrates how libraries can collectively build open scholarly infrastructure that resists vendor lock-in.
“I have worked closely with Kirsten across peer consortia for more than 15 years, and building Hyku for Consortia together was a chance to fully live out the values we preach to our respective members: band together, find real scale, and use that scale to give libraries both capacity and agency,” says Morris. “She has always been both bold and thoughtful in her leadership, unafraid to tackle the big issues and quick to look for ways to raise up the whole ecosystem. Kirsten is someone I greatly admire, and her example has shaped how I lead.”
PALNI's broader work in open systems has continued to grow as well, with libraries across the consortium evaluating and adopting technologies that better serve their needs, support innovation and sustainability, and deepen collaboration among staff.
PALNI also led a planning project in open bibliographic data management, made possible by a $225,000 American Rescue Plan Act grant. Together, these efforts reflect a priority that has held throughout Leonard's tenure: investing in open, shared infrastructure that keeps expertise and control in the hands of library staff.
Leonard's retirement will not be a complete exit from the field. She plans to take a "senior gap year" to explore, reflect, and reset before returning to information services in a focused, project-based capacity. She will also continue to serve on the board of the Samvera community, support PALNI's Artificial Intelligence initiative, and open bibliographic data projects.
"Working alongside this community has been a privilege, and the relationships built across these 16 years are among the things I will value most when I look back on my career," Leonard says.
PALNI is expanding collaboration within its institutions and with external library partners to build cost-effective, future-ready services. Brubaker will inherit a strong foundation and staff, along with a community of practice actively shaping the future of academic library collaboration.
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Founded in 1992, PALNI is a 501(c)3 nonprofit consortium with a strong track record of providing its 23 supported institutions with the best possible library information systems, technology and services. It does so through Deep Collaboration and shared expertise among the library staff and consortial staff, and through strategic relationships with external partners. The PALNI organizational chart helps illustrate the complex roles and leadership structure within the consortium. PALNI employees enjoy a supportive work culture based on trust, communication and respect. Under the guidance of its Strategic Framework, PALNI strives to enhance the teaching and learning missions of its supported institutions through five areas of focus: student success, affordability, services and systems, shared expertise, and outreach and engagement. Visit www.palni.org to learn more.
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