The Library and Information Research Group invites nominations each year for a postgraduate project.

Each Department of Library and Information Studies is encouraged to nominate one of their students' projects. LIRG offers this prize to promote a greater awareness amongst students of the importance of research and to facilitate the dissemination of the results of outstanding projects.

The value of the award is �300.

The prize is awarded to a student who is completing courses leading to a first professional qualification recognised by the Library Association or the Institute of Information Scientists in Schools/Departments of Library and Information Studies. The work must be submitted by the Department, with a short (no more than 200/300 words) supporting recommendation. Projects to be submitted shall be ones completed as part of normal course requirements in a course leading to a first professional qualification and shall be of the level that might be called "dissertation" or "major project".

The prize-winner will be required to give a short presentation on their projects at a special LIRG meeting, and write a short summary for Library and Information Research News (LIRN).

Previous winners of the Award have included:

• Cheryl Twomey, formerly of the University of North London, for her study, An analysis of the design and quality of patients information leaftlets supplied with medicines sold by pharmacists in the United Kingdom
• Alyn Jones, formerly of Queen Margaret College in Edinburgh, for his study, The Corporate Internet (Undergraduate winner)
• Nicholas Lewis, formerly of Thames Valley University, for his postgraduate dissertation on Level 4 Information and Library services NVQ: and alternative route to professional status in the ILS sector (Postgraduate Student Prize winner)
• Amanda Tinker, from Loughborough University, for her dissertation, Automatic abstracting: a review and an empirical evaluation (Postgraduate Prize winner)
• Jonathan Back of Loughborough University, for his dissertation on An evaluation of relevance ranking techniques used by Internet search engines (Undergraduate Prize winner)

The closing date for submissions for the Postgraduate Prize is 30th May 2003.

Applications should be sent to:
Noeleen Cookman
Ground Floor Flat, 72 Rosslyn Crescent, Harrow, Middx, HA1 2RZ
Tel: 07739 297103
Email: [email protected]