Hitson named OSTI director

Brian A. Hitson has been appointed director of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Scientific and Technical Information in Oak Ridge, officials said this week.

Hitson had been acting director of OSTI since January 12. OSTI’s former longtime director, Walter L. Warnick, retired January 3.

Hitson has held a number of positions at OSTI, most recently serving as associate director for administration and information services. In that position, he was responsible for international information exchanges, archival digitization and preservation, classified and sensitive information, cost-reimbursable product development, and administrative and financial management.

 

Hitson has chaired or served as a representative on numerous national and international information management groups including the WorldWideScience Alliance, International Council for Scientific and Technical Information, and agreements under both the International Atomic Energy Agency and the International Energy Agency. Hitson has led the implementation of the DOE public access plan for scholarly publications, the first such plan to have been approved by the White House, and he personally forged cooperative working relationships on public access with federal research agencies, the publishing community, and other key stakeholders, DOE said in a statement Wednesday.

“I am pleased to welcome Brian Hitson as the director of the Office of Scientific and Technical Information,” said Jeff Salmon, deputy director for resource management for DOE’s Office of Science. “OSTI’s mission is to advance science and sustain technological creativity by making R&D findings available and useful to the Department of Energy researchers and the public.”

OSTI is the DOE office that collects, preserves, and disseminates DOE-sponsored research and development results of R&D projects or other funded activities at DOE labs and facilities nationwide and grantees at universities and other institutions. The information is typically in the form of technical documents, conference papers, articles, multimedia, and software, collectively referred to as scientific and technical information, or STI.

OSTI provides access to that information using web-based searchable databases. Once DOE’s R&D results are incorporated into the databases, they are made available to single-point-of-access web portals such as the National Library of Energy (BETA) (gateway to information across DOE), Science.gov (U.S. science information from 15 federal agencies), and WorldWideScience.org (global science information from over 70 countries and counting), all of which are managed by OSTI.

OSTI’s headquarters is in Oak Ridge, and Hitson will continue to be based here. A new organization chart shows Lorrie A. Johnson is acting associate director of administration and information services, Jeffrey S. Given is assistant director of information systems, and Mark A. Martin is assistant director of program integration.

Warnick had been OSTI director since 1997.