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<p style="line-height:140%"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;line-height:140%;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:black">The US Geological Survey has
<a href="http://www.usgs.gov/newsroom/article.asp?ID=4449"><b><span style="color:#000099;text-decoration:none">released its public access plan</span></b></a>. “The USGS plan ‘Public Access to Results of Federally Funded Research at the U.S. Geological Survey:
Scholarly Publications and Digital Data,’ stipulates that, beginning October 1, the USGS will require that any research it funds be released from the publisher and available free to the public no later than 12 months after initial publication. The USGS will
also require that data used to support the findings be available free to the public when the associated study is published. The plan applies to research papers and data authored or co-authored by USGS, contract employees, award or grant recipients, partners
and other entities. It includes materials published by any non-USGS entity, including scientific journals, professional society volumes, cooperating agency series, and university or commercial publishers.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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