History of Use and Interpretation of the Concept of Open Access

Purpose: To explore the history of the use and interpretation of the concept of Open Access prior to the launch of the Open Access movement in 1991. Methodology. To achieve this goal, an in-depth search for publications containing the terms "open access to knowledge", "open access to research", "open access to science", "open access", "open access", etc. was carried out using the analytical and search tools NGram Viewer, Google Books, Google Scholar and The General Index. Findings. The results of a Google Books search of publications showed that the term "open access", including its translations into major European languages, in the sense of access to knowledge, including religious knowledge, was not used in the literature of European languages before the 17th century. It is shown that in English-speaking literature one of the first to use the expression "free and open accefs in the Scripture" was Beverley (1683), and the expression "Free and Open Accesf to all thofe Truths" was used by Oldisworth (1711). The latter expression is very close to the essence of the concept of "open access to scientific knowledge" in its modern understanding. It is shown that the term "open access to knowledge" was first used by the English educator William Ellis (1868). Originality. This is the first study on the prehistory of the Open Access movement to scientific knowledge.