The Department of Information Science has established the annual Peter Underwood book prize for academic research achievement.

Professor Peter G. Underwood is Emeritus Professor of Librarianship at the University of Cape Town. He retired in 2010, but is since then still professionally-active, working with other colleagues on consultancy, research and writing. He is also an Honorary Professor of the University of KwaZulu-Natal. Our association with professor Underwood goes back to the time when the late professor Hans Boon was head of our department. Currently he is involved as an external supervisor for some of our students who are busy with their MIT ICT Information Science mini-dissertation. He often publishes with his students.

Professor Underwood has now offered that funds raised by his co-publications with students of the department can be awarded to stimulate research and the development of research expertise in the subject domains of the department.

The Department of Information Science is grateful for Prof Underwood’s continuous care and generous contributions in the encouragement of research for our staff members.

The first book prize giving took place on 18 August 2021.

Previous winners include:

Table of previous winners

Ms Anika Meyer, who co-authored a book titled Third Space, Information Sharing and Participatory Design (DOI: 10.2200/S01096ED1V01Y202105ICR074).
Prof Archie Dick, who published a book titled Reading Spaces in South Africa, 1850-1920s (DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108887076) and co-edited another titled Print Culture in Southern Africa (ISBN: 9780367625887).
Prof Beth le Roux, who published a book titled Publishing against Apartheid South Africa: A Case Study of Ravan Press (DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108642736) and co-edited another titled Print Culture in Southern Africa (ISBN: 9780367625887).
Dr Liezl Ball, for completing her PhD degree titled Enhancing digital text collections with detailed metadata to improve retrieval.
Prof Marlene Holmner, for receiving a C2 NRF rating.

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