Includes bibliographical references and index.

Introduction: Snatching the Good from the Jaws of the Best -- Some Knowledge Wants to Be Free -- The Variety of Authors and their Content -- The Open Access Problem -- Information on Wings: The History of Open Access -- The Professoriate and Open Access -- The Digital Disseminators -- Alexandria in the Cloud: Promises and Pitfalls of Global Access -- An Intellectual Aquifer: The Bulletin Board Goes Global -- Finding What We Need: Searching and Filtering -- Too Much Content? -- Conclusion: Good Enough: Open Access Meets the Real World.

"This expansive history of knowledge and its openness makes a strong and nuanced case for opening scholarly knowledge to the public"--