Updated April 2022
In accordance with U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Fundamental Science Practices (FSP) requirements, peer-reviewed scientific publications and data approved for release must be placed in an acceptable digital repository to allow free public access and long term preservation. Below is a list of acceptable repositories for USGS funded information products, a category that includes scientific publications, such as USGS series and outside publications, and data products. Bureau scientific publications and data products should be placed in a USGS owned repository when possible. Refer to the FSP web page Criteria for Selecting Non-USGS Repositories for Release of USGS Scientific Data for information on determining the acceptability of non-USGS repositories.
In all cases, a complete metadata record for these information products is required. For scientific publications, the metadata record is automatically collected by the USGS Publications Warehouse from the internal USGS Information Product Data System’s (IPDS) dissemination step. For data products, a copy of the metadata record must be placed in the USGS Science Data Catalog. When possible, the complete metadata record must also accompany the data.
The Digital Object Identifier (DOI) must be part of the metadata record (refer to SM 502.7) for each product. DOIs for USGS publication series products (SM 1100.3) are obtained by USGS Office of Communications and Publishing, Science Publishing Network staff and registered with Crossref. DOIs for USGS owned data repositories are obtained from USGS Digital Object Identifier Tool for Data Release and registered with DataCite. DOIs for non-USGS data repositories are created by those repositories. For journal publications, accepted manuscripts must be deposited in the USGS IPDS repository. The USGS Publications Warehouse will provide public access to USGS-authored and funded peer-reviewed scientific publications according to the requirements contained in the USGS Public Access Plan.
In addition to the repositories listed below, data placed in and served from existing public-facing USGS owned and approved databases meet USGS Public Access Plan requirements. Such databases are those residing on USGS servers and meeting the quality requirements stated in SM 502.8. Similar to the USGS, repositories of other Federal agencies listed must meet the Government wide public access requirements and therefore are considered acceptable repositories. Repositories owned and funded by non-USGS entities are subject to the quality and access requirements established by those entities. The USGS is not responsible for data served from non-USGS repositories.
Questions related to acceptable digital repositories should be directed to the USGS FSP Advisory Council (GS_FSPAC@usgs.gov). USGS employees who would like to submit a request for a repository to be added to the list below, must provide an email to FSPAC with documentation of how the requested repository meets the USGS criteria requirements.
Note: Some organizations identified as the repository owner or funding source are referred to in the table below by their acronyms (shown in parenthesis) as follows: National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), National Institutes of Health (NIH), National Science Foundation (NSF), Bureau of Land Management (BLM), Department of Energy (DOE), Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), Forest Service/U.S. Department of Agriculture (FS/USDA), California Geological Survey (CGS), University of California (UC) Berkeley, California Institute of Technology (Caltech), National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis (NCEAS) UC Santa Barbara, State Water Resources Control Board (SWRCB), State of California Surface Water Ambient Monitoring Program (SWAMP), San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC) UC San Diego, Natural Hazards Engineering Research Infrastructure (NHERI), European Commission/Research and Innovation (EUC/RI), Federal Ministry of Education and Research Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung (BMBF), German Research Foundation Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG), International Ocean Discovery Program (IODP).