Started in 2013 by students

We got our start as the Open Access Button, but as our tools grew, so did we. OA.Works is now the home of our tools.

Sustained by a community

We build in partnership with librarians and open advocates striving for a just and kind world. We’ve been fortunate to have the backing of generous funders.

History

Our journey from 2013 to now.

  • 2013

    • Open Access Button is first released, capturing thousands of stories of people hitting paywalls

  • 2014

    • Right To Research Coalition and Open Society Foundation fund more early tool development
    • Open Access Button is updated to be able to find open access versions and email authors requests

  • 2015

    • Open Access Button is awarded the SPARC Innovator Award

  • 2016

    • We collected our 10,000th story on the Open Access Button
    • We released Open Data Button

  • 2017

    • Jisc funds exploration for using Open Access materials as a part of Interlibrary Loan to deliver cost savings and faster results

  • 2018

    • Arcadia Fund supports Open Access Button with $440,000 grant
    • DeliverOA, EmbedOA, and OAsheet are released to help libraries save money and time on ILL
    • Direct2AAM is released, documenting a novel way to help authors make their papers Open Access

  • 2019

    • InstantILL is built and released in partnership with IUPUI
    • Open Access Button Permissions Checker is released
    • The first libraries begin backing our tools financially through our Leadership tier

  • 2020

    • RSCVD is released, built in partnership with IFLA, to help respond to libraries closing during Covid
    • Arcadia Fund increases its financial support to $1.8 million over four years
    • ShareYourPaper is built and released in partnership with Montana State University

  • 2021

    • Open Access Button Organization rebrands as OA.Works
    • Plan S releases the Journal Checker Tool backed by our permissions data
    • ShareYourPaper For Libraries is released

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