A research guide in association with the Make Believe exhibition. This guide aims to keep you informed about misinformation, providing tips and tricks to help you with your own navigation on the high seas of information.
This guide provides will help you navigate misinformation as a concept as well as providing tips and tricks to help you evaluate resources and search for items in our collection.
The Library's exhibition Make Believe Encounters with Misinformation (16 April 2025 - 26 January 2026) uses items from our collection and newly commissioned creative works to spotlight stories of misinformation and disinformation.
Use the tabs above to navigate the guide.
The Triumph of truth, Illustrated Australian News, August 1, 1891, IAN01/08/91/8
This is an image (from the Illustrated Australian News) of a proposed forecourt sculpture by E.H Mackennal which was to be a companion to St. George and the Dragon (a position eventually taken up by Jeanne d'Arc in 1907) It was awarded second prize (with no winner declared) in the 1891 sculpture competition run by the trustees of the public library.
It depicts Truth personified as a woman on a winged horse triumphant over a defeated Error, (to make the point clearer, a figure of Victory holding the laurel wreath aloft can be seen on the orb in the raised hand of Truth). A not so subtle reference to truth beating lies, to the position of libraries as holders of knowledge and truth. While the sculpture was never made the sentiment still rings true, the Library is here to make information and knowledge accessible and findable, and to preserve that knowledge for future generations.
Visit the exhibition, open daily 10am - 6pm, in the Keith Murdoch gallery.
Discover more about this guide and the exhibition in the blog post by librarian Michael Harvey - Make believe and misinformation: a guide for cutting through information overload
Basement of Dome building showing deteriorating stacks of newspapers and books, 1954, H27351
Use this guide to help make sense of the information that you find. There can be an overwhelming amount out there and it can be hard to know how to fact check what you are finding.
Find our more about the more about early 20th century photo retouching and the 'last' photo of Ned Kelly on our Images tab
