Graduate School of Library and Information Science. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Abstract
Margaret Egan (1905???59) taught at the Graduate Library School of the
University of Chicago (1946???55) and at the School of Library Science at
Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio (1955???59). With her colleague
Jesse Shera, Egan wrote ???Foundations of a Theory of Bibliography???
for Library Quarterly in 1952; this article marked the fi rst appearance of
the term ???social epistemology.??? After Egan???s death, Shera has often been
credited for the idea of social epistemology. However, there is ample evidence
to show that it was Egan who originated the concept???one that is
commonly viewed as fundamental to the theoretical foundations of library
and information science.published or submitted for publicatio
