All data available though the Neotoma Paleoecological Database are free to use for non-commercial purposes (see Creative Commons license at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/). Any publications using any data obtained from the Neotoma Database should cite the original publications when possible; synoptic studies should seek solutions that ultimately lead to an entry in the Web of Science.

Normal ethics apply to co-authorship of scientific publications. The contributor should be invited to be a co-author if a user makes significant use of any individual contributor’s data, if any individual contributor’s data comprise a substantial portion of a larger dataset analyzed, or if a contributor makes a significant contribution to the analysis of the data or to the interpretation of the results. For synoptic studies using numerous datasets, contacting all contributors or making them co-authors may not be practical, possible, or reasonable. In no circumstances should authorship be attributed to data contributors, individually or collectively, without their explicit consent.

In all cases, any use of Neotoma data should include the following or similar text in their acknowledgments:

“Data were obtained from the Neotoma Paleoecology Database (http://www.neotomadb.org), and the work of the data contributors and the Neotoma community is gratefully acknowledged.”

Please also send to Neotoma, or to the relevant constituent data community, a copy of the published work or a link to the electronic resource. Your assistance helps document the usage of the database.