Prof Hans Boon presently holds the position of Research Professor in the Department. Previously he was Director of Telematic Learning and Education Innovation at the University of Pretoria. The prime responsibility of this position was to initiate education innovation throughout the whole University System of Pretoria, especially e-learning. Before holding this position, he was a member of top management of the University of Pretoria. His initial university education was in classical languages: Greek and Latin. In 1978, he was awarded a doctoral degree in Information Science. In that same year, he became professor in Information Science, a position he is still holding. Universities at which he has been teaching are: University of Johannesburg, University of Amsterdam, University of Natal, University of Konstanz and the University of Copenhagen. He has published 69 scientific papers on different topics in Information Science, inter alia: information needs, university libraries as information centres, information policies, information and knowledge management, information auditing, measuring and defining the information and knowledge society and information for development.

Research topics of interest are in Information Science, inter alia: information needs, university libraries as information centres, information policies, information and knowledge management, information auditing, measuring and defining the information and knowledge society and information for development.