Karen Keninger is retired after serving as the Director of the National Library Service for the Blind and Print Disabled, a Division of the Library of Congress. She also served as Director of the Iowa Department for the Blind and before that as regional librarian for the Iowa Library for the Blind.
She earned a B.A. from Drake University in Journalism and an M.A. from Iowa State University in business and technical writing. She also studied library science at the University of Iowa. She partnered with Doodie, her first Seeing Eye dog when she was 16, and now lives in Newton, Iowa, with Jimi, her seventh.