The Documentation Centre has a dual objective. First, to provide INED researchers with the demographic information they need, either on site or through access to other documentary sources. It also responds to requests from a specialized professional public: researchers, students, journalists, government bodies or businesses.

The fields covered naturally start with demography itself, but also concern sociology, medicine, history or economics, for example. In addition to France, the library covers all geographical regions of the world.

As part of its networking policy, the BNF (Bibliothèque nationale de France) has chosen INED as its "Associate Centre" in demography.  INED is entrusted with acquiring documents on various specialized themes (fertility, nuptiality, mortality, immigration, demographic statistics) and making them available to the public.