The Academic Resource Centre (ARC) discussed in thisrnthesis is an information facility designed to providerninformation support for the efficient and effectivernperformance of the statutory and public service functionsrnof the University of Malawi and its associatedrninstitutions and organizations including relatedrngovernment departments, parastatals, research centresrnetc. It is conceived as an information centre forming anrni ntegral part of the university college and institutionsrnassociated with higher learning and research in Malawi.rnThe ARC will utilize viable information technologyrnin conjunction with manual methods. Pre-planning studiesrnundertaken include: a review of trends in informationrntechnology (IT), a survey of accessibility to IT inrnMalawi, an assessment of the existing information supportrnsystems of the University of Malawi and theirrninadequacies in relation to the information and datarnneeds of the variety of users of the academic andrnresearch community and the related government andrnparastatal organizations. Based on the findings, plans torndevelop the ARC and steps to implement the plans arernproposed. The ARC is conceived as a networking of i nformat ion systems wi thi n t he university and thernassociated institutions as Â· well as of appropriaterninstitutions in the country and abroad. The ARC planrnoutlines the requirements in terms of manpower, systemsrndesign and implementation. Libraries and informationrncentres which could participate in the ARC network arernmentioned. A set of integrated databases consisting of:rnbibliographic records; information on curriculumrndevelopment, academic prospectus etc; profiles of expertsrnand institutions; of databases and information systems;rnof ongoing projects and researches in the University ofrnMalawi, Government and other selected researchrninstitutions,rndatabases tornisrnbernpresentedrndevelopedrnas prototypes for thernat the ARC. Data entryrnguideliness are also provided .Training fa c ilities for IT personnel are notrnadequate in the country and it has led to underutilizationrnof equipment and heavy reliance on vendorrnservice support for the systems. Some suggestions arernmade in overcoming this problem. Introduction of IT in libraries, documentation andrninformation centres in the country is slowly gainingrnground and currently is largely being applied in special libraries and to a certain extent i n academic librariesrnas well. However, IT applications to generate informationrnproducts and services is currently limited to wordrnprocessing and in-house bibliographic databasernmanagement. Emerging Its, such as CD-ROM, networking andrndesktop publishing, are yet to be widely used in Malawi.rnThe need for developing national databases to capture andrndisseminate information generated in the country isrnemphasized.