She has written The Order of Things, Self-Meditation, Instant Karma, 8,789 Words of Wisdom, The Wish List, and 1,400 Things for Kids to be Happy About (Workman), Roget's International Thesaurus and Dictionary of American Slang (HarperCollins), 201 Little Buddhist Reminders and 1,325 Buddhist Ways to Be Happy (Ulysses Press), Encyclopedic Dictionary of Archaeology (Springer), Trivia Lovers' Lists of Nearly Everything in the Universe, 4,000 Questions for Getting to Know Anyone and Everyone, Consider This, and The Life of Language (Random House); and Dictionary of Artifacts and The Archaeologist's Fieldwork Companion (Wiley-Blackwell). A number of Barbara's books are available on the Kindle, including The Buddha's Lists, Life Needs a Menu, and Time Capsule.

Barbara holds a PhD and MPhil in Linguistics (University of Exeter), a PhD in Archaeology (Greenwich University), an MA (Greenwich University) and PhD in Buddhist Studies (Akamai University), and BS in Physical Education (Valparaiso University).

Dr. Kipfer is the lexicographer for Wolfram|Alpha. She has also worked for such companies as Dictionary.com/Thesaurus.com, Answers.com, Ask Jeeves, Bellcore/Telcordia, General Electric Research, IBM Research, and idealab. Barbara is a Registered Professional Archaeologist and her other website is Archaeology Wordsmith.