Dr. K. Rama Patnaik has joined the Council for Social Development, Hyderabad, as a Senior Fellow, the title of her research is "Designing a national research evaluation architecture: a library analytics framework for scholarship in CFTIs under ONOS". A library and information science professional with over 25 years of experience, she began her career establishing the libraries of two National Law Schools: NALSAR University of Law, Hyderabad, and National Law Institute University, Bhopal.
She then spent 17 years at the Indian Institute of Management Bangalore (IIMB), superannuating in December 2025. There she headed collections, electronic resources and scholarly communications, led a team of about 30, and oversaw the renovation of the library's interiors. She excelled in electronic resources management and brought strong expertise in contract negotiation with publishers and vendors.
She led the digital transformation of IIMB's print-based library, introducing innovative workflows and practices that reshaped how collections and services were managed and accessed. She conducted information literacy sessions, provided scholarly communication services, and set up institutional repository and research data services using Digital Commons, DSpace and Dataverse. Well versed in the latest technologies, she kept pace with emerging tools and trends in the field. She also directed the Union Catalogue Project for the 20-member IIM Libraries Consortium.
Her archival work included designing the metadata framework for the IIMB History Project and leading the digital preservation of rare pre-independence census reports.
Dr. Patnaik holds a Ph.D. in Library and Information Science from Andhra University and master's degrees in Sociology and Politics, and has completed the Executive General Management Programme at IIM Bangalore. She has co-edited books with Wiley and IGI Global, served on publisher advisory boards, and was a member of the Institutional Review Board at IIMB.