No. DIMOC maintains a centralized, standardized program to professionally scan, track, preserve and archive each piece of visual information, as well as manage any associated metadata. This program is designed to take the burden off the DoD commands, organizations, units and personnel. There is no need to scan anything yourself or send it through DVIDS, email or other electronic means. Do not create VIRINs for physical media if one does not exist. DIMOC will assign identification numbers to the digitized files. Contact DIMOC if you have questions.

No. The records are DoD property, and are subject to the DoD archival process before they are offered to NARA. DIMOC is the official VI records center and conduit for transferring DoD visual information to NARA.

No. The DIMOC archival staff must coordinate all incoming media with submitting organizations for the purposes of scheduling and providing specific shipping guidance. Shipments received without prior coordination are subject to being returned to the sender.

• DIMOC no longer takes classified physical media. However, DIMOC can provide assistance for this records management by way of the National Archives. Please contact DIMOC about this procedure.

• DIMOC can receive FOUO media. (Note: Unless the FOUO content has a FOIA exemption clearly stated within the Release Authority Instructions, DIMOC has authority to release content after it is six months old. Only content that has a FOIA exemption will be held in an FOUO status by DIMOC.)

Contact the DIMOC archival staff to coordinate the use of external hard drives containing sufficient storage for your digital files and associated metadata. Follow their instructions to send the drives back to DIMOC.

The DIMOC archival staff will issue specific guidance on a case-by-case basis.

No. This program is for content produced/created on behalf of the DoD by military, civilian and contract employees. Certain types of copyrighted content are eligible; please contact the DIMOC archival staff for more clarification. Private donations of content are sometimes accepted.

We cannot take floppy or zip disks, but NARA can. Please contact us to discuss the nature of such holdings. We do not have a film lab; if you can get it developed, we can accept the negatives.

In almost all cases, no. The original media, which belongs to the DoD, will be preserved in a climate-controlled facility. We can provide you digital access via the web and in some cases, DVD copies with the content. Please include this in your request when you contact us.

DIMOC will provide shipping instructions. We provide tracking information, and an email receipt is sent upon arrival.

In most cases, no. DIMOC will work with contributing organizations to ship the media on a case-by-case basis. Please contact us for further discussion.