Objective: The Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) is a Department of Energy (DOE) Laboratory operated by Princeton University. The DOE released a Public Access plan in October of 2014 in response to the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) memo from February of 2013 titled “Increasing Access to the Results of Federally Funded Scientific Research”. To determine how the Princeton University Library and Office of Information Technology can help PPPL comply with the DOE Public Access Plan.

Methods: Several meetings were held between the PPPL committee charged with Public Access Plan compliance, the E-science and Scholarly Communications Librarians, and Princeton’s Dspace repository architect and programmer. These meetings served to help librarians provide PPPL with information about OSTP and DOE requirements and to determine how the Library and OIT could help PPPL with compliance.

Results: Librarians helped align the PPPL Data Management Plan with DOE requirements. Librarians also helped PPPL’s communications and technology licensing understanding of Open Access to published research and consult on publisher copyright policies. The E-Science Librarian, DSpace repository architect, and DSpace programmer worked with PPPL to set up a DSpace community, associated metadata, and guidelines for documentation to make the data underlying publications publicly accessible.

Conclusion: Many U. S. funding agencies have released the Public Access plans in response the OSTP Memo from February 2013 with requirements for open access to articles, data management plans, and making data underlying publications publicly available. Librarians can play a role in helping their institutions respond to these requirements.