# Timeline of the open-access movement

The following is a timeline of the international movement for open access to scholarly communication.

## 1940s-1990s

* 1942
** American sociologist Robert King Merton declares: "Each researcher must contribute to the 'common pot' and give up intellectual property rights to allow knowledge to move forward."
* 1971
** "World's first online digital library is launched, Project Gutenberg."
* 1987
** Syracuse University in the US issues one of the world's first open access journals, New Horizons in Adult Education (ISSN 1062-3183).
* 1991
** 14 August: ArXiv repository of physics research papers established at Los Alamos National Laboratory in the US.
* 1994
** 27 June: Stevan Harnad posts a "Subversive Proposal" for authors to archive their articles for free for everyone online.
** July 1994. Electronic Green Journal (EGJ) was launched by the University of Idaho Library. Since 2009 it is published by the University of California eScholarship. The EGJ is a peer-reviewed publication devoted to information about international sources on environmental protection, conservation, management of natural resources, and sustainability.
* 1998
** Brazil-based SciELO (Scientific Electronic Library Online) launched.
** Public Knowledge Project founded in Canada.
** Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition founded in North America.
* 1999
** October: Open Archives Initiative on interoperability standards holds its first meeting, in New Mexico, US.

## 2000s

* 2000
** BioMed Central publisher established.
* 2001
** 15 January: Creative Commons founded in the United States.
** Public Library of Science publisher active.
** Open Journal Systems free software published.
** SPARC Europe established to promote open access in Europe.
* 2002
** 14 February: Budapest Open Access Initiative statement issued.
** 28 June: US-based OAIster catalog begins.
* 2003
** 11 April: Bethesda Statement on Open Access Publishing formed.
** 22 October: Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities published.
** 25 December: Institutional Self-Archiving Policy Registry launched (later called ROARMAP).
** Redalyc (Red de Revistas Científicas de América Latina y El Caribe, España y Portugal) established in Mexico.
* 2004
** UK Digital Curation Centre founded.
** Bielefeld Academic Search Engine launched by Bielefeld University, Germany.
** Publisher Springer begins "hybrid option 'Open Choice' for their full portfolio of over 1,000 subscription journals."
** 30 January: Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development issues "Declaration on Access to Research Data from Public Funding."
* 2005
** Directory of Open Access Repositories begins publication.
* 2007
** European Research Council issues "its first Scientific Council Guidelines for open access."
* 2008
** Durham Statement on Open Access to Legal Scholarship written.
** 7 April: United States National Institutes of Health Public Access Policy effected.
** July: Aaron Swartz releases the "Guerilla Open Access Manifesto", to send "a strong message against the privatization of knowledge".
* 2009
** 12 January: European Commission-funded OpenAIRE project begins, supporting implementation of open access in Europe.
** Confederation of Open Access Repositories founded.

## 2010s

* 2010
** "Beall's list" of predatory open access publishers begins circulating.
* 2011
** 20 January: #icanhazPDF begins on Twitter.
** 5 September: Sci-Hub launched by Alexandra Elbakyan.
** 16 December: United States Research Works Act bill introduced.
** UK-based CORE (COnnecting REpositories) aggregation service founded.
* 2012
** Knowledge Unlatched established.
** Pasteur4OA (Open Access Policy Alignment Strategies for European Union Research) begins.
** The Cost of Knowledge protest begins against high prices charged by large publisher Elsevier.
** 22 October: Brussels Declaration signed, on open access to Belgian publicly funded research.
* 2013
** PeerJ megajournal begins publication.
** Registry of Research Data Repositories begins operating.
** 4 October: "Who's Afraid of Peer Review?" published in Science.
* 2014
** FOSTER Project (Facilitate Open Science Training for European Research) begins.
* 2016
** 7 March: Open Data Button (browser extension) launched.
* 2017
** April: UnpayWall Button (Browser extension) launched (90 million articles are indexed)
** 10 October: Jussieu Call statement issued
** Plug-in search tool Canary Haz launched to enable access to PDF versions of articles (later renamed Kopernio.com).