The merger of the National Science and Technology Library and Information Centre (NASTLIC), the National Atlas Development Centre (NADEC), and National Science and Technology Press (NASTEP) led to the establishment of the Institute for Scientific and Technological Information (INSTI). The merger came into effect after the Act re-establishing the CSIR (Act 521) was promulgated by Parliament on 26 November 1996. Before then, NASTLIC was an Institute while NASTEP and NADEC were Centres within the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR).

NASTLIC started as the Central Reference and Research Library in 1964 and had as its main task, to provide reference material for researchers. In 1992, it was merged with the then Documentation Centre and designated a Centre to provide a national capacity for documenting and disseminating indigenous and foreign scientific and technological information (STI). It became a full-fledged institute in 1994.