The Department of Information Science has established the annual Peter Underwood book prize for academic research achievement. The first book prize giving took place on 18 August 2021.

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. He is also an Honorary Professor of the University of KwaZulu-Natal. Professor Underwood as been associated with the Department of Information Science for several years. Currently he is involved as an external supervisor for some of the MIT ICT Information Science students’ mini dissertations. He often publishes with his students. He has offered that the funds raised by his publications be awarded to stimulate research and research expertise. Each of the winners could choose a book on research methods or postgraduate supervision. The 2020-2021 winners are:

• Ms Anika Meyer, who co-authored a book titled Third Space, Information Sharing and Participatory Design (DOI: 10.2200/S01096ED1V01Y202105ICR074).
• Ms Anneke Nel, for completing her Master’s degree titled Propaganda as used in the official South African Defence Force magazine - Paratus, 1970-1988.
• 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.

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.