She is a former National Librarian of New Zealand, and has also worked at Christchurch Polytechnic Institute of Technology and Macquarie University.

Carnaby is originally British and grew up in the Hunter Valley, in Australia.

[1][2] Carnaby worked in a public library in the UK before taking a job at the Christchurch Polytechnic Institute of Technology.

[5] During her time at Lincoln she introduced an open-access policy for publications, data, and teaching materials, which was a first for a New Zealand university.

[5] She is particularly interested in how to preserve raw research data in the face of constantly changing technology.