<p style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0px;font:12.0px Helvetica">On 2012-08-07, at 7:28 AM, Omega Alpha | Open Access wrote:</p><p style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0px;font:12.0px Helvetica"><br></p>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin-top:0px;margin-right:0px;margin-bottom:0px;margin-left:0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-style:solid;padding-left:1ex">Stevan,<br>I would have guessed BOAI as the first OFFICIAL use. I'm trying to ferret-out the PRE-HISTORY of the term--even its informal, coincidental or unconscious use--LEADING UP to the conscious decision of those involved in BOAI (including yourself, Stevan) to call this thing that we're all now talking about "open access".</blockquote>
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<p style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0px;font:12.0px Helvetica">Gary,</p>
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<p style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0px;font:12.0px Helvetica">My own recall is this:</p>
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<p style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0px;font:12.0px Helvetica">The issue, from the late 1980's onward was making <i>online access</i> to refereed research free for all instead of just <i>toll-access</i> (subscription, license, pay-per-view) for those at institutions that could afford to pay.</p>
<p style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0px;font:12.0px Helvetica;min-height:14.0px"><br></p>
<p style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0px;font:12.0px Helvetica">The inspiration was the Internet and Web itself (starting with anonymous FTP). Computer scientists (and later physicists) were providing free online access to their papers early on (computer scientists as of at least the '80's and physicists as of the early '90's).</p>
<p style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0px;font:12.0px Helvetica;min-height:14.0px"><br></p>
<p style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0px;font:12.0px Helvetica">The words "open access" were no doubt pronounced and written during that period (as you saw below), but they were simply informal verbal descriptions of what was needed and what people were providing. There were other ways of referring to it too, but all concerned <i>online access</i>, free for all, as opposed to toll-access, for subscribers only. My own use was very explicitly based on contrasting it with <i>toll access</i>.</p>
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<p style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0px;font:12.0px Helvetica">The term "open access" only became "official" with the BOAI, and I can tell you that several terms were considered in a prior list discussion. The choice was very explicitly influenced by the fact that we were trying to encourage author self-archiving, and that 2 years earlier in 1999 the "Open Archives Initiative" (originally called the "Universal Preprint Service" and then the "Santa Fe Convention") had created the OAI protocol for making <i>Open Archives</i> (later called "repositories") interoperable with one another. So we consciously chose "Open Access" in order to make a clear link between the two Initiatives (BOAI and OAI).</p>
<p style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0px;font:12.0px Helvetica"><br></p><p style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0px;font:12.0px Helvetica">I can also remember a distinct moment (in 1999) in a conversation with Herbert van Sompel when it was decided (by Herbert) to call Open Archives "Open Archives" (following some list discussion of various potential names).</p>
<p style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0px;font:12.0px Helvetica"><br></p><p style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0px;font:12.0px Helvetica">Hope that helps. Maybe OAI's Herbert von de Sompel or BOAI's Peter Suber will have further recollections.</p>
<p style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0px;font:12.0px Helvetica"><br></p><p style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0px;font:12.0px Helvetica">Stevan Harnad</p>
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<p style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0px;font:12.0px Helvetica;color:#144fae">Thanks.</p>
<p style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0px;font:12.0px Helvetica;color:#144fae;min-height:14.0px"><br></p>
<p style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0px;font:12.0px Helvetica;color:#144fae">Gary F. Daught</p>
<p style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0px;font:12.0px Helvetica;color:#144fae">Omega Alpha | Open Access</p>
<p style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0px;font:12.0px Helvetica;color:#144fae"><a href="http://oaopenaccess.wordpress.com">http://oaopenaccess.wordpress.com</a> </p>
<p style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0px;font:12.0px Helvetica;color:#144fae">Advocate for open access academic publishing in religion and theology</p>
<p style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0px;font:12.0px Helvetica;color:#144fae">oa.openaccess@ <a href="http://gmail.com">gmail.com</a> | @OAopenaccess</p>
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<p style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0px;font:12.0px Helvetica;color:#144fae">On Aug 7, 2012, at 12:25 AM, <a href="mailto:goal-request@eprints.org">goal-request@eprints.org</a> wrote:</p>
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<p style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0px;font:12.0px Helvetica;color:#00631a">Date: Tue, 7 Aug 2012 00:00:01 -0400</p>
<p style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0px;font:12.0px Helvetica;color:#00631a">From: Stevan Harnad <<a href="mailto:harnad@ecs.soton.ac.uk">harnad@ecs.soton.ac.uk</a>></p>
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<p style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0px;font:12.0px Helvetica;color:#00631a">The term became official with Budapest Open Access Initiative (BOAI)</p>
<p style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0px;font:12.0px Helvetica;color:#00631a"><a href="http://www.soros.org/openaccess/read">http://www.soros.org/openaccess/read</a></p>
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<p style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0px;font:12.0px Helvetica;color:#00631a">On 2012-08-06, at 6:29 PM, Omega Alpha | Open Access wrote:</p>
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<p style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0px;font:12.0px Helvetica;color:#540403">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?</p>
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<p style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0px;font:12.0px Helvetica;color:#540403">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:</p>
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<p style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0px;font:12.0px Helvetica;color:#540403">"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.</p>
<p style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0px;font:12.0px Helvetica;color:#540403;min-height:14.0px"><br></p>
<p style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0px;font:12.0px Helvetica;color:#540403">"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)</p>
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<p style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0px;font:12.0px Helvetica;color:#540403">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.</p>
<p style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0px;font:12.0px Helvetica;color:#540403;min-height:14.0px"><br></p>
<p style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0px;font:12.0px Helvetica;color:#540403">I suppose the next question would be: At what point did this informal and (perhaps) coincidental use become formalized into a technical signifier?</p>
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<p style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0px;font:12.0px Helvetica;color:#540403">Curious and interested.</p>
<p style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0px;font:12.0px Helvetica;color:#540403;min-height:14.0px"><br></p>
<p style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0px;font:12.0px Helvetica;color:#540403">Gary F. Daught</p>
<p style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0px;font:12.0px Helvetica;color:#540403">Omega Alpha | Open Access</p>
<p style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0px;font:12.0px Helvetica;color:#540403"><a href="http://oaopenaccess.wordpress.com">http://oaopenaccess.wordpress.com</a> </p>
<p style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0px;font:12.0px Helvetica;color:#540403">Advocate for open access academic publishing in religion and theology</p>
<p style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0px;font:12.0px Helvetica;color:#540403">oa.openaccess@ <a href="http://gmail.com">gmail.com</a> | @OAopenaccess</p>