Margaret Hutchins (September 21, 1884 – January 4, 1961) was an American librarian and educator who taught library science at Columbia University from 1931 to 1952.

[1] Born into a well-to-do family in Lancaster, New Hampshire, Hutchins earned a BA degree in Greek and philosophy with honors from Smith College in 1906, a BLS with honors from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in 1908, and a MLS from Columbia University in 1930.

She taught summers at the Chautauqua Institution in 1926 and 1927, which led to her recruitment as first assistant and then superintendent of branch reference work at Queens Borough Public Library.

[1] She coauthored Guide to the Use of Libraries: A Manual for College and University Students (H. W. Wilson, 1920), which went through five editions by 1935.

She posited four categories of reference questions: (1) bibliographical, (2) biographical, (3) historical and geographical, and (4) current and statistical.