{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2025,10,21]],"date-time":"2025-10-21T15:36:24Z","timestamp":1761060984015,"version":"3.41.2"},"reference-count":40,"publisher":"Emerald","issue":"3","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2020,2,14]],"date-time":"2020-02-14T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1581638400000},"content-version":"tdm","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/www.emerald.com\/insight\/site-policies"}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["JD"],"published-print":{"date-parts":[[2020,2,14]]},"abstract":"<jats:sec><jats:title content-type=\"abstract-subheading\">Purpose<\/jats:title><jats:p>In The Invisible Substrate of Information Science, a landmark article about the discipline of information science, Marcia J. Bates wrote that \u201c\u2026we are always looking for the red thread of information in the social texture of people's lives\u201d (1999a, p. 1048). To sharpen our understanding of information science and to elaborate Bates' idea, the work at hand answers the question: Just what does the red thread of information entail?<\/jats:p><\/jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title content-type=\"abstract-subheading\">Design\/methodology\/approach<\/jats:title><jats:p>Through a close reading of Bates' oeuvre and by applying concepts from the reference literature of information science, nine composite entities that qualify as the red thread of information are identified, elaborated, and related to existing concepts in the information science literature. In the spirit of a scientist\u2013poet (White, 1999), several playful metaphors related to the color red are employed.<\/jats:p><\/jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title content-type=\"abstract-subheading\">Findings<\/jats:title><jats:p>Bates' red thread of information entails: terms, genres, literatures, classification systems, scholarly communication, information retrieval, information experience, information institutions, and information policy. This same constellation of phenomena can be found in resonant visions of information science, namely, domain analysis (Hj\u00f8rland, 2002), ethnography of infrastructure (Star, 1999), and social epistemology (Shera, 1968).<\/jats:p><\/jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title content-type=\"abstract-subheading\">Research limitations\/implications<\/jats:title><jats:p>With the vital vermilion filament in clear view, newcomers can more easily engage the material, conceptual, and social machinery of information science, and specialists are reminded of what constitutes information science as a whole. Future researchers and scientist\u2013poets may wish to supplement the nine composite entities with additional, emergent information phenomena.<\/jats:p><\/jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title content-type=\"abstract-subheading\">Originality\/value<\/jats:title><jats:p>Though the explication of information science that follows is relatively orthodox and time-bound, the paper offers an imaginative, accessible, yet technically precise way of understanding the field.<\/jats:p><\/jats:sec>","DOI":"10.1108\/jd-04-2019-0067","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2020,2,18]],"date-time":"2020-02-18T03:28:11Z","timestamp":1581996491000},"page":"647-656","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":4,"title":["The red thread of information"],"prefix":"10.1108","volume":"76","author":[{"given":"Jenna","family":"Hartel","sequence":"first","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]}],"member":"140","reference":[{"key":"key2020042910393799100_ref001","unstructured":"American Library Association (ALA) (2006), \u201cCore values of librarianship\u201d, available at: http:\/\/www.ala.org\/advocacy\/intfreedom\/corevalues (accessed 11 April 2019)."},{"key":"key2020042910393799100_ref002","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"205","DOI":"10.1002\/asi.4630300406","article-title":"Information search tactics","volume":"30","year":"1979","journal-title":"Journal of the American Society for Information Science"},{"key":"key2020042910393799100_ref003","first-page":"37","article-title":"What is a reference book?: a Theoretical and empirical analysis","volume":"26","year":"1986","journal-title":"RQ"},{"key":"key2020042910393799100_ref004","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"407","DOI":"10.1108\/eb024320","article-title":"The design of browsing and berrypicking techniques for the online search interface","volume":"13","year":"1989","journal-title":"Online Review"},{"key":"key2020042910393799100_ref005","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"514","DOI":"10.5860\/crl_57_06_514","article-title":"The Getty end-user online searching project in the humanities: report no. 6: overview and conclusions","volume":"57","year":"1996","journal-title":"College & Research Libraries"},{"issue":"12","key":"key2020042910393799100_ref006","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1043","DOI":"10.1002\/(SICI)1097-4571(1999)50:12<1043::AID-ASI1>3.0.CO;2-X","article-title":"The Invisible substrate of information science","volume":"50","year":"1999","journal-title":"Journal of the American Society for Information Science"},{"issue":"11","key":"key2020042910393799100_ref007","first-page":"960","article-title":"Introduction to the special issue","volume":"50","year":"1999","journal-title":"Journal of the American Society for Information Science"},{"issue":"4","key":"key2020042910393799100_ref008","first-page":"683","article-title":"Information science at the university of California at Berkeley in the 1960s: a memoir of student days","volume":"52","year":"2004","journal-title":"Library Trends"},{"key":"key2020042910393799100_ref009","unstructured":"Bates, M.J. 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