The primary objective of the institute is to train the human resources required for the huge school library sector in the country.
In addition it has been empowered by the NILIS Ordinance of 1999 to conduct other postgraduate programmes in the Library and Information Science (LIS) field and produce the necessary high quality human resources for universities, research institutes, government departments, local government authorities and other library and information sectors in the country.
The National Institute of Library and Information Sciences (NILIS), University of Colombo was established in 1999.
The purpose of the institute is to provide postgraduate and general training facilities in the Library and Information Science field with special attention to the school/teacher librarianship.
The establishment of the institute was a result of the World Bank funded General Education Project 2, (GEP 2).