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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 first 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.
1. INTRODUCTION
In the April 1952 issue of Library Quarterly (LQ), Margaret Egan and Jesse Shera of the University of Chicago's Graduate Library School copublished what came to be regarded as a seminal article in the history of library and information science (Egari & Shera, 1952). Seven years later Egan had died, and Shera was left to develop the arguments begun in 1952 (see, for example, Shera, 1960, 1968a, 197Oa). Over the last half century, citations have occasionally been made to the original article; more often than not, however, the citations have been to Shera's sole-authored publications in which he refines the ideas presented in 1952. It is Shera's name that seems to have become associated in common consciousness with the ideas contained in the original article. Yet there are indications-deriving in part from Shera's own statements-that Egan deserves rather more credit than she has historically received. In this article, I examine the hypothesis that it is time for the balance of credit to be redressed. I begin by summarizing the contributions made in the 1952 article; I will then outline the methods that may be used in determining the nature and extent of Egan's intellectual influence on Shera. I conclude with an evaluation of Egan's oeuvre.
2. "FOUNDATIONS or A THEORY or BIBLIOGRAPHY"
Essentially, what Egan and Shera do in "Foundations of a Theory of Bibliography" is to identify a gap in the disciplinary landscape and fill it with the "new discipline" that they call "social epistemology" (Egan & Shera, 1952, p. 132). They situate social epistemology on the one hand in relation to economics and on the other...