Elaine Svenonius

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.^[2]

In The Intellectual Foundation of Information Organization, Svenonius attempts to "synthesize the literature of information organization in a language and at a level of generality to make it understandable to persons outside the field of library and information science" and to "synthesize subject and descriptive cataloging within a common conceptual framework."^[2] The book is frequently assigned to Master of Library and Information Science students, among whom it is nicknamed "the red devil".^[3]

Svenonius was the recipient of the ALCTS Margaret Mann Citation^[4] and the Ranganathan Award for Classification Research.^[5]