Selective Dissemination of Information (SDI) service is one of the personalised informationrnfiltering method of delivering cutTent infOlmation based on predefined user profile. However,rnthis service has been found to be one of the resource-intensive and time-consuming both forrnthe service provider and the user. Particularly, in developing countries, it is one of the rarelyrnimplemented information service components.rnUser profile is fundamental to information filtering in SDI systems. However, as prevIousrnstudies have repeatedly stated, the creation and maintenance of users profiles is the mostrndifficult area. This thesis research investigated into the SDI user profi le updating problemrndomain with particular emphasis to the application of interface agent technologies. Towardsrnaddressing the stated problem, the sm user profile has been studied by taking a case SDIrnsystem known as ILRIAlerts of the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) in AddisrnAbaba. This has helped to investigate the various approaches and methods that agentrntechnology can be applied in improving information filtering in SDI systems. Literaturernreviews showed that this technology has already been employed in similar systems,rnparticularly in using the Internet information resources.rnBased on these findings, agent-oriented modeling of the information filtering process of thernSDI system through methods and procedures for updating the user profile has beenrninvestigated and some of the basic methods and procedures proposed have been demonstratedrnby developing a prototype agent. Applying this agent, some small-scale tests have been madernon the performance of the proposed methods taking few test data from ILRIAlerts usersrnrnfeedback records. The prototype and tests have indicated the applicability of using agentrnmethods to SDr information fi ltering problems.