Bharat Mehra

Bharat Mehra is the EBSCO Endowed Chair in Social Justice and Professor at the University of Alabama’s School of Library and Information Studies. His career spans over 18 years in LIS academia, previously serving at the University of Tennessee. He holds a PhD from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (formerly the Graduate School of Library and Information Science).

His research focuses on diversity advocacy, social justice, and community informatics, emphasizing action research with marginalized groups. Key areas include rural libraries, LGBTQ+ information access, and pandemic-era disinformation challenges. He teaches courses on social justice pedagogy, grant development, and public library management.

As Chair in Social Justice, he leads the LIS doctoral concentration in social justice research, aiming to redefine the profession’s role in 21st-century societal needs. His work bridges LIS practices with UN Sustainable Development Goals and critical race theory. Over 30+ publications span edited volumes, peer-reviewed articles, and grant-funded projects addressing systemic inequities in information access.

Notable works include Antiracist Library and Information Science (2023) and Social Justice Design and Implementation (2022). Current projects include developing taxonomic frameworks for LGBTQ+ library services and analyzing public libraries’ pandemic-era roles in democracy.