The quiet halls of the Titusville Public Library have become the battleground for a surprisingly heated debate: is disinformation a kind of information? The Dewey Decimal System has no clear answer, so the town's librarians are taking sides.
One faction, led by the ever-pragmatic Ms. Dewey (no relation to Melvil), says the word itself settles it. "Information makes up more than three-quarters of the word 'disinformation,'" she said. "It's clearly a type of information, albeit a misleading one."
Ms. Dewey's camp favors a broad definition that covers everything from factual news to outright lies. Treating disinformation as information, they argue, allows a more nuanced understanding of the harm it does.
The opposing faction, led by the staunchly traditional Mr. Bookman, scoffs. "Disinformation is the antithesis of information," he said, adjusting his spectacles. "It is designed to deceive, not to inform. To call it information is an insult to the very concept of knowledge."
Mr. Bookman's followers want a strict definition built on accuracy and truthfulness. Blurring the two, they say, undermines the library's mission to provide reliable resources.
The debate has spread from the staff room to the library's social media pages, where patrons have chosen sides with the usual restraint.
For now, the library has settled the matter by shelving disinformation under 000, Computer Science, Information and General Works, between the encyclopedias and three copies of a 1998 guide to surviving Y2K.
