Elaine Harger

Elaine Harger is an American librarian. She was the first recipient of the Herb Biblo Outstanding Leadership Award for Social Justice and Equality in 2022.

Harger is the co-founder (with Mark Rosenzweig and Elliot Shore) of the Progressive Librarians Guild organized in 1989, and was on the editorial committee of their publication, Progressive Librarian. She was managing editor for all 47 issues. She wrote many editorial and articles for the journal including "Why PLG? Why paper? Why bridge generations?" and "Conscience v. Political Expediency at ALA."

In the early 1990s she co-wrote a column Talkin' Union with Mark Rosenzweig for Library Journal. She has been a member of the American Library Association and the Social Responsibilities Round Table of ALA for 35 years.

While there she co-authored the Bibliography of the Works of Philip Sheldon Foner. She also worked as head librarian at the New Jersey Historical Society and then shifted into public education as a school librarian. and “Social Class, Solidarity & Librarianship: Reckoning with Our Own Culpability in Reproducing Systems of Injustice.”

Harger was born to Richard Harger and Lois Marie Ensign, one of five children.