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In The Invisible Substrate of Information Science, a landmark article about the discipline of information science, Marcia J. Bates wrote that “…we are always looking for the red thread of information in the social texture of people's lives” (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?

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–poet (White, 1999), several playful metaphors related to the color red are employed.

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 (Hjørland, 2002), ethnography of infrastructure (Star, 1999), and social epistemology (Shera, 1968).

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–poets may wish to supplement the nine composite entities with additional, emergent information phenomena.

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.

The underlying software issue related to cited references is the capability of the software to identify the specific work cited by a reference, and associate it with the correct author and journal. This paper aims to investigate this issue and to discuss the latest editions of Web of Science (WoS) and Scopus.

In this paper the strengths and weaknesses of the Distinct Author Set feature of WoS and the Author Details feature of Scopus are discussed.

The paper reveals that these tools will have an increasingly important role in refining the process of disambiguating author (and journal) names in calculating their h‐index.

The paper provides useful information on software issues related to cited references and on the Distinct Author Set feature of WoS and the Author Details feature of Scopus.

Based on the results of a two‐year study of online searching by humanities scholars, conducted by the Getty Art History Information Program, implications are drawn for the design of information products for the humanities. Scientists and humanities scholars not only have different kinds of information needs, they also relate to their own literatures infundamentally different ways. As a result, humanities researchers need information products that do not arise out of the conventional assumptions and framework that have produced the familiar databases and other information products in the sciences and industry. These characteristic differences of humanities scholars are first discussed; then design implications are considered in the following areas: design and content of databases, indexing vocabulary in humanities resources, and interfaces and command languages.

First, a new model of searching in online and other information systems, called ‘berrypicking’, is discussed. This model, it is argued, is much closer to the real behavior of information searchers than the traditional model of information retrieval is, and, consequently, will guide our thinking better in the design of effective interfaces. Second, the research literature of manual information seeking behavior is drawn on for suggestions of capabilities that users might like to have in online systems. Third, based on the new model and the research on information seeking, suggestions are made for how new search capabilities could be incorporated into the design of search interfaces. Particular attention is given to the nature and types of browsing that can be facilitated.

An exploratory sample of 114 personal home pages, drawn from a home page directory available on the World Wide Web (People Page Directory: http://www.peoplepage.com), was analysed to detect patterns and trends in home page content and design. Covered in the analysis were types of informational content included in the home pages; internal organisation and structure of the content, including type and number of hypertext links; miscellaneous content elements, such as ‘sign guestbook’ and number of hits to the page; and physical design features such as photos, motion and audio elements. Metaphors used in the design of the pages and degree of self‐revelation were also considered. The home pages displayed a great variety of content and of specific types of formatting within broader formatting approaches. While some content elements were quite popular, none of them — not even name — was found on all home pages. Nor did the pages evidence reliance on any single dominant metaphor, such as home page as ‘home’ in the sense of domicile. It appears that though certain features may be frequently found in it, the personal home page as a social institution is still very much under development.

Arts-informed, visual research was conducted to document the pictorial metaphors that appear among original drawings of information. The purpose of this paper is to report the diversity of these pictorial metaphors, delineate their formal qualities as drawings, and provide a fresh perspective on the concept of information.

The project utilized pre-existing iSquare drawings of information that were produced by iSchool graduate students during a draw-and-write activity. From a data set of 417 images, 125 of the strongest pictorial metaphors were identified and subjected to cognitive metaphor theory.

Overwhelmingly, the favored source domain for envisioning information was nature. The most common pictorial metaphors were: Earth, web, tree, light bulb, box, cloud, and fishing/mining, and each brings different qualities of information into focus. The drawings were often canonical versions of objects in the world, leading to arrays of pictorial metaphors marked by their similarity.

Less than 30 percent of the data set qualified as pictorial metaphors, making them a minority strategy for representing information as an image. The process to identify and interpret pictorial metaphors was highly subjective. The arts-informed methodology generated tensions between artistic and social scientific paradigms.

The pictorial metaphors for information can enhance information science education and fortify professional identity among information professionals.

This is the first arts-informed, visual study of information that utilizes cognitive metaphor theory to explore the nature of information. It strengthens a sense of history, humanity, nature, and beauty in our understanding of information today, and contributes to metaphor research at large.

INTRODUCTION Computers and new information technologies have beyond question brought tremendous advancement in information storage and retrieval. In recent years, the traditional card catalog has given way first to the COM (computer output on microform) catalog, then to the online catalog. Now, many libraries are shifting to the new capability in order to provide better and faster services to their patrons.