compelling model for other countries and research institutions to follow, not least Harvard University -- which adopted its first mandate in February 2008. (Harvard would of course have been influenced by the 2005 NIH Policy as well; but then the UK Inquiry would surely have influenced the NIH, which announced its OA Policy on February 3 rd 2005). The Inquiry also provided a vivid demonstration of just how divisive the topic of OA is, and the considerable lengths that publishers (both subscription and OA publishers), as well as learned societies, are prepared to go in order to protect their businesses. Really nothing Given the very different conclusions that the Finch Committee had reached earlier this year, I became keen to find out more about the origins and the process of the 2004 Inquiry. So I contacted Dr Ian Gibson , the then Chairman of the Science & Technology Select Committee, and Labour MP for Norwich North . To my delight, he agreed to do an interview with me. Gibson's account of the Inquiry is fascinating, and anyone interested in the history of OA will surely benefit from reading what he has to say in the two-part interview I publish below. After speaking to Gibson, I found myself continuing to muse over why the Committee had made the recommendations it had -- particularly in light of the repeated assertions of both subscription publishers and learned societies that in reality there was no access problem, and that the traditional subscription model remained