What is DTIC?

• DTIC Established as DoD Field Activity
• DTIC Provides Information on Planned, Ongoing, or Completed Defense-related Research
• The Repository for All DoD Research Documents
• IAC Program Management Office (PMO)—Information Hub of the IACs

The Defense Technical Information Center (DTIC®) is THE premier provider of DoD technical information.

DTIC serves as a vital link in the transfer of information among DoD personnel, DoD contractors and potential contractors and other U.S. Government agency personnel and their contractors. DTIC is a DoD Field Activity under the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics, reporting to the Director, Defense Research & Engineering (DDR&E).

DTIC Established as DoD Field Activity

In a Decision Memorandum signed June 4, 2004, Mr. Paul Wolfowitz, Deputy Secretary of Defense, announced his determination to establish the Defense Technical Information Center (DTIC) as a DoD Field Activity. DTIC will be under the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics (AT&L) and will report to the Director, Defense Research & Engineering (DDR&E), Dr. Ronald Sega. In promoting this organizational realignment in the DoD, the DDR&E has stated this action will enhance the use of DTIC scientific and technical information databases by all DoD research and engineering activities. In response to the announced decision, Mr. Kurt Molholm, the DTIC Administrator, said: "I consider this a business process transformation action, moving DTIC back to the primary functional community it's chartered to support."

In pursuing this course of action for DTIC, Dr. Sega has outlined several goals for the organization that are designed to focus DTIC on meeting the overall objective. They are:
• Closely align technology performers (labs, product centers, non-DoD research organizations, etc.) with the scientific and technical information providers at DTIC,
• Facilitate an enhancement of DTIC efforts to support the USD(AT&L) "E-Business" initiatives in research and engineering,
• Promote the exploitation of emerging information technology tools on dynamic science and technology databases,
• Expand on the synergy of research and engineering facilities, people, and information.

DTIC is known for several core missions. It is the central collection and dissemination point for DoD's scientific reports with over 2 million collected since its inception in World War II and an annual acquisition of over 25-30,000 new reports. Ongoing and planned R&D project information is garnered from both the DoD community and industry.
DTIC also oversees the management of 11 DoD Information Analysis Centers that are tasked to provide technical and analytical services to areas of critical DoD interest.

A third area of principal focus is the provision of web services to over 100 DoD web sites including the DoD home page DefenseLink and a number of R&D related sites in support of the DoD community.

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DTIC Provides Information on Planned, Ongoing, or Completed Defense-related Research

DTIC customers include DoD, industry, and academia. It is responsible for the DoD IACs, supporting highly specialized technical areas. The scope of DTIC's collection includes areas normally associated with Defense research; however, because DoD's interests are widespread, the collection also contains information on

• biology
• chemistry
• energy
• environmental sciences
• oceanography
• computer sciences
• sociology
• logistics
• human factors engineering.

Among DTIC's products and services are graphic user interfaces, CD-ROM search tools, and a variety of current awareness products and on-line services. Early in the emergence of the Internet, DTIC adapted the latest in information processing technology to improve how information holdings are collected, processed, stored, and distributed. Working with customers, DTIC has also created and hosted more than 80 Web sites including several World Wide Web (WWW) sites, including DefenseLINK, the official DoD Home Page, as well as anonymous file transfer protocol (FTP) and gopher sites available to anyone on the public Internet. These Internet services provide a wide array of information, such as DoD press releases, DoD directives and instructions.

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The Repository for All DoD Research Documents

Holdings include—

• Command Histories
• Conference Proceedings
• DoD Directives and Instructions
• DoD-Sponsored Patents and Patent Applications
• DoD-Sponsored Software, Video, and CD-ROMs
• Foreign Documents and Translations
• Journal Articles
• Management Summaries
• Security Classification Guides
• Studies and Analyses
• Technical Reports

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IAC Program Management Office (PMO)—Information Hub of the IACs

• Provides IAC users with a central point of contact for the overall IAC Program
• Assists IACs and users in collecting, analyzing, and disseminating information
• Supports the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) by providing broad IAC Program oversight, identifying and resolving policy issues, and developing mechanisms and programs to bring IAC products and services to DoD components
• Provides contract management and specific administrative guidance for 13 IACs whose basic operations are funded by the DTIC and/or other sponsoring agencies
• Focal point for organizations requiring IAC services
• Monitors the IACs' operations ensuring that their activities conform to the purposes and objectives of the DoD IAC Program in general
• Provides continuous support to DoD and related U.S. Government technical communities

The IAC PMO serves as an integral part of IAC activities by—

• Managing IAC Contracts
• Overseeing IAC Operations
• Promoting IAC Products and Services
• Providing Administrative Guidance
• Requesting Procurements
• Reviewing Technical Area Tasks (TATs)

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