[3] Bates' early work dealt with searching success and failure in library catalogs.
Several of her papers have been widely cited and used, including articles on her concepts of "berrypicking," of "information search tactics," and the "cascade of interactions" in the user-system interface.
[6][7][8] In 2017, Ali Shiri did an extensive analysis of Bates' major articles, determining who cited her work and why.
"[12] Bates takes an evolutionary approach to the development of human and animal information and knowledge.
The communication model sees information as the flow and exchange of a message, originating from one speaker, mind, or source and received by another.
"[15] Bates claims (drawing on Susantha Goonatilake) that there are three fundamental channels of information: genetic, neural-cultural, and exosomatic.