Regional Information Center for Science and Technology
Regional Information Center for Science and Technology (RICeST) () is an Iranian governmental organisation established to promote the production and distribution of scientific information in Iran and Islamic countries, providing reference, study and bibliographical information and related services. It also undertakes scientometrics based on its databases of scientific products of Iran and Islamic countries. It was established as Regional Library of Science and Technology (RLST) in 1991 by agreement between Iran's Ministry of Culture and Higher Education and the Third-World Academy of Sciences, with professor Jafar Mehrad as the director. It is  currently under the Ministry of Science, Research and Technology. It is also known as the Shiraz Regional Library of Sciences and Technology (SRLST) Before the Internet was established in Iran, RICeST fulfilled its objectives by setting up a Bulletin Board Service to allow electronic access to the information sources it was collating. Finances. In 1993, it was approved for an independent budget of 1800 million Rials. Around the same time it obtained a loan from the Islamic Development Bank for $15 million. , the Ministry of Science, Research and Technology provides RICeST annually with about one million dollars to purchase  scientific journals. RICeST allocated about one million and 600 thousand dollars each year to purchase journals in languages other than Persian. Branches. National Branches Forient Branches Databases. RICeST has created, maintained and provided access to many subject matter bibliographic databases and directories. In 2006 RICeST started collected journals in art, humanities and social sciences Persian General Databases Persian Subject Databases Non Persian Databases Library Automation Software. A team of IT and librarianship experts contributed to developing the library automation software with the following specifications: