Elaine Svenonius is an American librarian and library scholar, known for her research on bibliographic control, particularly cataloging, classification, and indexing. She is best known for bringing a philosophical knowledge organization approach to cataloging theory. Svenonius received an MA in Philosophy from the University of Pennsylvania in 1957, an MA in Library Science in 1965 from the University of Chicago, and a PhD in Library Science in 1971, as well from the University of Chicago.