Via ars technica uk this is a long read that documents the long, circuitous, challenging and unfulfilled promise of access to human knowledge provided without impediments specific to economic or social status, country of origin, age, ethnicity, i.e., for everyone – Open access: All human knowledge is there—so why can’t everybody access it?

“…imagine, for a moment, if it were possible to provide access not just to those books, but to all knowledge for everyone, everywhere—the ultimate realisation of Anthony Panizzi [who later became principal librarian of the British Museum] dream. In fact, we don’t have to imagine: it is possible today, thanks to the combined technologies of digital texts and the Internet. The former means that we can make as many copies of a work as we want, for vanishingly small cost; the latter provides a way to provide those copies to anyone with an Internet connection. The global rise of low-cost smartphones means that group will soon include even the poorest members of society in every country. That is to say, we have the technical means to share all knowledge, and yet we are nowhere near providing everyone with the ability to indulge their learned curiosity…”