TYPES OF DOCUMENTATION AND INFORMATION CENTRES 

Documentation and information centres are discussed here under three broad groups. They are: 

i)  By ownership, i.e., those centres that are owned, funded and run by government agencies or learned societies or professional associations or private agencies. 

ii)  By specialised interests, i.e., those centres that cater to specialists in different subject areas of research, in mission-oriented projects, and those others interested in special materials, or specific kinds of information. 

iii)  By levels; i.e., those centres that operate at the global, regional, national, or local levels. 

These groups are not mutually exclusive. An institution owned by a learned society may offer general services, or government agencies operating either at local or national level, may very well offer specialised services. In the following paragraphs, we give you a brief description of these types of documentation and information centres with examples of each type.