Professor Theo Bothma is professor emeritus in the Department of Information Science; he was reappointed as contract professor for the period 1 July 2016 - 30 June 2019, from 1 July 2019 - 30 June 2020, from 1 July 2020 - 30 June 2021 and from 1 July 2021 - 30 June 2022. He joined the University of Pretoria in 1991 and was Head of Department from 1 October 1995 - 30 June 2016, when he retired. He was appointed as chairperson of the School of Information Technology on 1 September 2008 and served two terms, until his retirement. He holds a C1 rating from the National Research Foundation (2009 - 2014, 2015 - 2020). In 2009 he was recognised by the University of Pretoria as an exceptional academic achiever, a three-year award (2010 - 2012), and again in 2012 (2013 - 2015). He currently supervises a number of master's and doctoral students. He is a member of, inter alia, the departmental Research Committee and the Steering Committee of the African Centre of Ethics for Information Ethics (ACEIE). His research focuses on: • Information organization and retrieval in the e-environment • Information literacy • e-Lexicography • Digital humanities • Usability studies, HCI and ethical design • Curriculum development Prof Bothma is the author and co-author of numerous publications and has presented many papers at local and international conferences. He is joint editor-in-chief of Libri: International Journal of Libraries and Information Studies (since 2015; member of the editorial board, 1997-2014) and a member of the editorial board of the International Review of Information Ethics (and formerly also of, inter alia, SAJLIS, Online Information Review, New Review of Information Networking, Education for Information). He is a member of the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) Standing Committee for Library Theory and Research (chair 2017-2019; member since 2015). He was an expert advisor of the IFLA/FAIFE committee (2010-2019), and a member of the Standing Committee for Knowledge Management for two terms, 2005-2013 (and also web manager until 2009). He is the editor and co-author of the IFLA/FAIFE World Report 2007 on freedom of access to information and freedom of expression, as well as the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) World Report 2010. He was a member of Library and Information Association of South Africa (LIASA) (1998-2016), as well as, before his retirement, of a number of other professional organisations. He was a member of the Southeastern Library Association (SeLA) research initiative, initiated by Prof Ulrich Heid of the Institut fur Informationswissenschaft und Sprachtechnologie at the University of Hildesheim in Germany (funded by DAAD, 2011-2015), as well as a collaborator of CentLex at Aarhus University in Denmark, specifically with Professors Henning Bergenholtz and Sven Tarp. In July 2010 he received a US$2m grant from the Carnegie Corporation of New York for the development and presentation of the M.IT (Stream B) programme; in 2014 he received a further grant of US$1m for two additional intakes. In November 2012 he received a second US$2m grant from the Carnegie Corporation of New York for the development and presentation of a continuing professional development programme in IT for academic librarians.
