Defense Technical Information Center
The Defense Technical Information Center is the repository for research and engineering information for the United States Department of Defense. DTIC's services are available to DoD personnel, federal government personnel, federal contractors and selected academic institutions. The general public can access unclassified, approved for public release information through its public website.
History
The DTIC traces its history to the June 1945 formation of the Air Documents Research Center, a joint effort of the US Army Air Force, US Navy and Royal Air Force to build a single collection of captured German aeronautical research, based in London. The ADRC was initially tasked with the sorting of the document collection into three broad groups; documents that would assist the war in the Pacific theater, documents of immediate intelligence interest to the United States or British forces and documents of interest for future research.With the ending of the war in 1945, the ADRC moved to Wright Field in Dayton, Ohio and became the Air Documents Division. In 1948, the secretaries of the Navy and Air Force redesigned ADD into the Central Air Documents Office giving it the collection of captured documents and also broadened its mission to include collecting, processing and disseminating information.
In 1951, the group was renamed the Armed Services Technical Information Agency to "provide an integrated program of scientific and technical services for the Department of Defense and its contractors". As part of this reorganization, a branch office was opened in the Library of Congress, Washington. One major project during the ASTIA era was to develop library catalog systems to organize the growing body of work. This led to the Uniterm indexing system in the early 1950s.
In 1963, the group was once again reorganized to become the Defense Documentation Center for Science and Technical Information, and placed under the direction of the Defense Supply Agency. The DDC moved to Cameron Station, Alexandria, Virginia. The name changed again in 1969 to become the DTIC. In 1995, it moved to Andrew T. McNamara Headquarters Complex, Fort Belvoir, Virginia, as part of the reformed Defense Logistics Agency.
In August 2025, DTIC's civilian staff was reduced from 154 to 40. This change was directed by the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering, Emil Michael. Michael's memorandum, entitled, "Rationalization and Transformation of the Defense Technical Information Center" stated that "...its unfocused organizational model and legacy information platform are not suited to keep pace with global R&D, take advantage of Artificial Intelligence, or integrate with other data and intelligence systems that support strategic deterrence-impacting R&D investment decisions by the Department of Defense." He directed that, "DTIC shall streamline its organization to deliver its core statutory functions through a reduced staff of 40 civilian positions, including one Senior Executive Service member serving as the Administrator." He concluded that, "These actions should save the Department more than $25 million per year and reflect the Secretary's commitment to bureaucracy reform and technology transformation to better meet critical mission needs."