The Commission on Bibliography and Documentation was established originally as two separate activities, a Commission on Bibliography and a Commission on Documentation, under the IUHPS Division of History of Science (which changed its name to the Division of History of Science and Technology). The two Commissions were merged in 1993 and Professor Rod Home elected as the inaugural President. Current governing board of the CBD is: Birute Railiene (President), Silvia Waisse (Secretary), Stephen Weldon (Vice-President for Bibliography), Gavan McCarthy (Vice-President for Archives). Amy Rogers (Treasurer).

The aims of the Commission on Bibliography and Documentation are:

• to foster the development and utilisation of bibliographic and archival documentation assisting historians in their study of science and technology;
• to extend knowledge of the archives and bibliography of the history science and technology to the wider community.

The instruments of the Commission on Bibliography and Documentation are:

• Papers and discussions at the international meetings, conferences;
• Articles in the relevant scientific journals, popular magazines;
• The Neu-Withrow Bibliography Prize, established in 2013, which will be awarded each four years for the best bibliography or manuscript finding aid in the history of science;
• A World History of Science Online (WHSO), launched in 2003 as a free resource for scholars worldwide to provide information about databases of bibliographical and archival sources in the field of history of science and technology.