Greetings. Does anyone know who/when first used the phrase "open access" to
refer to toll free publication and/or access to scholarly literature, though
not necessarily yet as a technical term?
Could this be a candidate? I'm reading the transcript of Stevan Harnad's
presentation: "Implementing Peer review on the Net: Scientific Quality Control
in Scholarly Electronic Journals" in the Proceedings of the 1993 International
Conference on Refereed Electronic Journals, 1-2 October1993. Winnipeg:
University of Manitoba, 1994, 8.1-8.14, and come across the following excerpt:
"Enter anonymous ftp ('file transfer protocol'--a means of retrieving
electronic files interactively). The paper chase proceeds at its usual tempo
while an alternative means of distributing first preprints and then reprints is
implemented electronically. An electronic draft is stored in a 'public'
electronic archive at the author's institution from which anyone in the world
can retrieve at any time….The reader can now retrieve the paper for himself,
instantly, and without ever needing to bother the author, from anywhere in the
world where the Internet stretches--which is to say, in principle, from any
institution of research or higher learning where a fellow-scholar is likely to
be.
"Splendid, n'est-ce pas? The author-scholar's yearning is fulfilled: open
access to his work for the world peer community. The reader-scholar's needs and
hopes are well served: free access to the world scholarly literature (or as
free as a login on the Internet is to an institutionally affiliated academic or
researcher)…." (8.4-8.5)
The use here is clearly not yet technical, and yet it has all the earmarks of
future application. The words "access," "open, "and "free" are used repeatedly
in the Proceedings, but I was unable to find any the phrase "open access" was
used elsewhere.
I suppose the next question would be: At what point did this informal and
(perhaps) coincidental use become formalized into a technical signifier?
Curious and interested.
Gary F. Daught
Omega Alpha | Open Access
http://oaopenaccess.wordpress.com
Advocate for open access academic publishing in religion and theology
oa.openaccess@ gmail.com | @OAopenaccess
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