Additional information
by Linda Quirk (Author)
Whether print or digital, text or image, artistic or scientific, rare or common, historic or contemporary, most of the content we encounter contains accidental mistakes--ranging from typos to factual errors to errors arising from prejudicial assumptions--and a significant proportion of it also contains deliberate misinformation resulting from various forms of forgery, fakery, and piracy. This exhibition catalogue introduces the work of notorious and lesser-known forgers, it reveals the various ways in which experts and authors have faked their own identities--ranging from carefully-selected pseudonyms to falsified ethnicities to fraudulent credentials--and it explores a number of shady publishing practices. We can all become better readers and better at protecting ourselves from scammers by improving our understanding of the nature of the content before us.
Author Biography
Linda Quirk is a librarian (Bruce Peel Special Collections, University of Alberta, Edmonton) whose research and publications focus on a group of women who, in the nineteenth century, did pioneering work in various fields and whose writings helped to break down the barriers then preventing women from full participation in Canadian society.
