The second loop, public representation, is frequently denied by scientists. For the past five years information science has been able to take advantage of the emergence of the Internet as a public phenomenon, but this actant is currently taking a beating at the hand of viruses, child pornography, failing dot-coms, and the abuse of privacy. Perhaps search engines will emerge as the exemplary public face of information science. Certainly they are the biggest implementation of IR ever, and have done more to bring concepts like recall and relevancy to a wider audience than any bibliographic instruction program ever has. This notoriety is, of course, a two-edged sword, as poor precision and excessive recall are not concepts we necessarily want to hear people talking about in pubs and on busses.
Alliances form the third loop of our circulatory system.
These alliances are the interactions that the field has outside of its immediate sphere of influence that are required to get work done. This is something that must be created, Latour argues, because the connections are never self-evident or natural. Certainly we continue to have strong ties to our communities through our public libraries. A new look for us, rather shocking for some, is that many practitioners are moving into the private sector. Perhaps these frequently young and recently trained information professionals are the advanced guard for information science as they seek the more lucrative pastures of the corporate world.