Information plays a fundamental role in scientific, technological and economic development. Realizing the importance of scientific information, the Government of Pakistan, with the assistance of UNESCO, established the Pakistan National Scientific and Technical Documentation Centre (PANSDOC) in 1957 under the Pakistan Council of Scientific & Industrial Research (PCSIR), Karachi. The centre served the scientific community through procurement of documents, compilation of bibliographies, abstracting, indexing and technical translations.
An expanded project named Pakistan Scientific and Technological Information Centre (PASTIC) was launched in 1974 around the nucleus of PANSDOC and was later transferred from PCSIR to Pakistan Science Foundation (PSF), Islamabad. Presently, PASTIC functions as a subsidiary of PSF, an autonomous organization under the Ministry of Science & Technology.
PASTIC is a premier organization in the field of S&T information and serves researchers and professionals through specialized information services. Its scope and facilities expanded after transfer to PSF.
PASTIC National Centre is located at Quaid-i-Azam University Campus, Islamabad. Its six sub-centres are located at Karachi, Lahore, Faisalabad, Peshawar, Muzaffarabad and Quetta.
PASTIC currently offers wide-ranging services including full-text S&T documents, primary and secondary journals, patent information service, bibliographic information service, indigenous S&T databases, union catalogues and directories, National Science Reference Library and reprographic printing services.
PASTIC is dedicated to fulfilling the growing information needs of the science, engineering and technology community for research and development activities at the national level.