Scholarly Communications is Not Toxic Waste:

Germany is a most appropriate place for this exploration. Johannes Gutenberg’s western invention of the printing press about 1450 made the Renaissance possible and the printed text both possible and affordable. Martin Luther’s insistence fifty years later that the written word was not a danger to people and that the Bible and other texts should be “unchained” and made available in the vernacular is an appropriate precedent for this conference on “Open Access.” Both Gutenberg’s invention and Luther’s insistence on access disrupted the existing order in fundamental ways. Open access will similarly be disruptive to individual institutions and scholars.