US Services Research Articles

The RELATIONS BETWEEN A CENTRAL INFORMATION UNIt AND SECTIONAL UNITS. PART II. SOME EXAMPLES TAKEN FROM LARGE ORGANIZATIONS AND CONCLUSIONS DRAWN FROM THEM

Following upon Mr J. R. Stocks' paper on theoretical aspects, I should like briefly to discuss one or two examples of centralization which seem to be worthy of attention, and the first of these is the United States Armed Services Technical Information Agency, generally and more conveniently known as ASTIA. This Agency, which deals entirely with information in the shape of separate unpublished reports, receives copies of them from the three American Services and from some other sources which supply reports to these Services; it abstracts and indexes these reports, supplies photographic copies of them on request and also produces accession lists with abstracts, indexes, and bibliographies; its customers are the US Services, their contractors and nobody else, and it is in fact staffed by the United States Air Force on a repayment basis. Before ASTIA was set up there was a minimum of co‐operation between the US Services so far as documentary information was concerned and now the Agency's services are far more ambitious than any one of them could contemplate separately: it has mechanized many of its operations and it has been continuously concerned to expand and improve its services, and to this end has established branch offices to give more rapid service to its scattered customers. Yet, although it gives service to all within its terms of reference who have an entitlement it receives its raw material only at the discretion of the Services, and some of these are more forthcoming than others, although it is not questioned that it provides a better service than the individual Services could.