Margaret Elizabeth Egan was an American librarian and communication scholar who is best known for “Foundations of a Theory in Bibliography,” published in Library Quarterly in 1952 and co-authored with Jesse Hauk Shera. This article marked the first appearance of the term "social epistemology" in connection with library science.
Jesse Hauk Shera was an American librarian and information scientist who pioneered the use of information technology in libraries and played a role in the expansion of its use in other areas throughout the 1950s, 60s, and 70s.
Lee Pierce Butler was a professor at the University of Chicago Graduate Library School. He was one of the first to use the term "library science", by which he meant the scientific study of books and users, and was a leader in the new social-scientific approach to the field in the 1930s and 1940s.
Education for librarianship, including for paraprofessional library workers, varies around the world, and has changed over time. In recent decades, many institutions offering librarianship education have changed their names to reflect the shift from print media to electronic media, and to information contained outside of traditional libraries. Some call themselves schools of library and information science, or have dropped the word "library" altogether.
Douglas Waples was a pioneer of the University of Chicago Graduate Library School in the areas of print communication and reading behavior. Waples authored one of the first books on library research methodology, a work directed at students supervised through correspondence courses. Jesse Shera credits Waples’s scholarly research into the social effects of reading as the foundation for the approaches to the study of knowledge known as social epistemology. In 1999, American Libraries named him one of the "100 Most Important Leaders We Had in the 20th Century".
Frances E. Henne was an American librarian. Henne pursued a life of education and became a leader and expert in creating standards for school librarians. In 1999, American Libraries named her one of the "100 Most Important Leaders We Had in the 20th Century."
Leon Carnovsky was an American librarian and educator who focused much of his career surveying libraries in the United States and around the globe. Carnovsky was recognized by the journal, American Libraries, as one of the 100 most influential figures in Library and Information Sciences.
Louis Round Wilson was an important figure to the field of library science, and is listed in "100 of the most important leaders we had in the 20th century," an article in the December 1999 issue of American Libraries. The article lists what he did for the field of library science including dean at the University of Chicago Graduate Library School, directing the library at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, and as one of the “internationally oriented library leaders in the U.S. who contributed much of the early history of the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions.” The Louis Round Wilson Library is named after him.
Lester Eugene Asheim was an American librarian and scholar of library science and film history. He was on the faculty of the University of Chicago Graduate Library School and the University of North Carolina and held positions in the American Library Association (ALA). He was included among the "100 most important leaders we had in the 20th century" by the American Library Association.
Herman Howe Fussler was an American librarian, library administrator, teacher, writer and editor, who was a pioneer in the use of microphotography. Fussler was ranked as one of the "100 of the Most Important Leaders we had in the 20th Century" by American Libraries. Fussler served as director of the University of Chicago libraries from 1948 to 1971, was Dean of the University of Chicago Graduate Library School, from 1961 to 1963, and was instrumental in the founding of the Regenstein Library. He helped create the Center for Research Libraries. He was an elected fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Carleton Bruns Joeckel was an American librarian, advocate, scholar, decorated soldier, and co-writer, with Enoch Pratt Free Library (Baltimore) Assistant Director Amy Winslow, A National Plan for Public Library Service (1948) that provided the foundation for nationwide public library services.
W. Boyd Rayward is an Australian librarian and scholar, best known as the biographer of Paul Otlet.
Kathleen de la Peña McCook is a library scholar and librarian. Much of her work centers around human rights, First Amendment issues, and the freedom of information.
Tsien Tsuen-hsuin, also known as T.H. Tsien, was a Chinese-American bibliographer, librarian, and sinologist who served as a professor of Chinese literature and library science at the University of Chicago, and was also curator of its East Asian Library from 1949 to 1978. He is known for studies of the history of the Chinese book, Chinese bibliography, paleography, and science and technology, especially the history of paper and printing in China, notably Paper and Printing, Volume 5 Pt 1 of British biochemist and sinologist Joseph Needham's Science and Civilisation in China. He is also known for risking his life to smuggle tens of thousands of rare books outside of Japanese-occupied China during World War II.
Allyson Carlyle was a United States of America library and information science scholar, considered a leading scholar in the field of cataloging.
The Joseph W. Lippincott Award was established in 1938 by the American Library Association.
Honorary Membership conferred by the American Library Association is the Association's highest award. "Honorary membership may be conferred on a living citizen of any country whose contribution to librarianship or a closely related field is so outstanding that it is of lasting importance to the advancement of the whole field of library service. It is intended to reflect honor upon the ALA as well as upon the individual." The Honorary Membership award was established in 1879.
The ALA Medal of Excellence is an annual award bestowed by the American Library Association for recent creative leadership of high order, particularly in the fields of library management, library training, cataloging and classification, and the tools and techniques of librarianship. It was first awarded in 1953 to Ralph R. Shaw, Director of the National Agriculture Library.
