When I began my digital publishing efforts 18 years ago, the global network environment was much more fragmented than it is today (for details, see The Matrix: Computer Networks and Conferencing Systems Worldwide), and the primary information access tools were e-mail, FTP, mailing lists, and USENET newsgroups. Gopher servers, which represented a significant advance in information access, would not become available until 1991, and NCSA Mosaic, an early Web browser that ignited interest in the Web, until 1993. You can get a good sense of the context of my digital publishing efforts by consulting the Hobbes’ Internet Timeline v8.2 and the Timeline of the Open Access Movement....
PS: Charles is not only a pioneer in electronic publishing but in OA publishing. The best way to get a sense of his extensive contributions is to see the chronology of his publishing activities, and the bibliography about those publications, which I've had to omit from this excerpt. I only hope this is just a retrospective exhibit for an ongoing career.
Posted by
Peter Suber at 6/30/2007 10:55:00 AM.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
I recommend the OA tracking project (OATP) as the best way to stay on top of new OA developments. You can read the OATP feed on a blog-like web page or subscribe to it by RSS, email, or Twitter. You can also help build the feed by tagging new developments you encounter.
