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).

Source: Wikipedia — Timeline of the open-access movement (CC BY-SA 4.0)