NRC-CISTI maintains a large collection of scientific technical and medical translations including articles, conference papers, patents, reports, cover-to-cover journal translations, series and books. The majority of these translations are in English and the rest in French. They are translated from a variety of foreign language publications, mostly European, although some are translated from east Asian original language documents.

There are also a number of special collections within the NRC-CISTI translation holdings including the U.S. National Translations Center translations (acquired from 1989-1993), the Henry Bruchter collection, the National Research Council Technical Translations' series, Canadian Translations in Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences, U.S. Forest Service translations, University of Guelph translations related to Bees, Canadian Forestry Service translations and the British Industrial & Scientific International (BISI) Translations Service of the Metals Society (London).

NRC-CISTI translations can be found by searching the NRC-CISTI Catalogue either under the author/title of the article, paper or report, or by the title of the overall work which might be part of a series or book. However, the great majority of the NRC-CISTI scientific and technical article/paper translation records are not available on the NRC-CISTI Catalogue. Clients wishing to ensure that the full translation collection is searched should make a request to NRC-CISTI for Extended Supply Service stating: "Translation", "English only" or "English please, original acceptable" in the Instructions field of their request.