The visible paradigm of information science is well known to the research community and is widely discussed in the literature. This research paper attempts to articulate a few key elements of the field of information science that are generally unarticulated in order to describe the invisible substrate of information science, which may not be well known to practitioners. The author refers to these parts of the field as “below the water line.” Bates emphasizes the role of information science as a metascience that conducts research and develops theory around the documentary products of other disciplines. The major activities of information science professionals are concentrated on representating and organizating information rather than on knowing information. The paper also discusses the methodological approaches and values of information science.

Information technology and digital information have recently received significant attention. Both the business community and researchers are excited about information technology. Researchers, including computer scientists, cognitive scientists, and social scientists, are attempting to determine new ways of handling information and the social impacts of information technology. This situation poses a challenge to information science. In some cases, newcomers to the field spend a significant amount of research money to rediscover issues that are already known to information scientists. Therefore, the challenge for information scientists is to make the research and theory better known and more understandable to newcomers. In order to achieve this objective, information scientists need to become more conscious of the research and practice paradigm and communicate it more rapidly and effectively to a large number of newcomers.