Stanford scholar celebrates Western culture's open-access tradition: John Willinsky | Stanford News

"The move toward “open access” to research and scholarship, far from being a modern digital-age creation, has roots in the West that date back to medieval times, writes a Stanford education scholar. John Willinsky’s new book explains how learning has long benefited from efforts to increase its circulation.  

Although the term “intellectual property” was introduced into the English language in the 18th century, the concept took shape in ancient monasteries and universities where early scholars protected the rights and common good of learning, Willinsky writes in The Intellectual Properties of Learning: A Prehistory from Saint Jerome to John Locke (University of Chicago Press)."