Peter Dain Suber (born November 8, 1951) is an American philosopher specializing in the philosophy of law and open access to knowledge. He is a Senior Researcher at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society, Director of the Harvard Office for Scholarly Communication, and Director of the Harvard

Open Access Open access (OA) is a set of principles and a range of practices through which nominally copyrightable publications are delivered to readers free of access charges or other barriers. With open access strictly defined (according to the 2001 de ...

Project (HOAP). Suber is known as a leading voice in the

open access Open access (OA) is a set of principles and a range of practices through which nominally copyrightable publications are delivered to readers free of access charges or other barriers. With open access strictly defined (according to the 2001 de ...

movement, and as the creator of the game '' Nomic''.

Education

Suber graduated from Earlham College in 1973, received a PhD degree in

philosophy Philosophy ('love of wisdom' in Ancient Greek) is a systematic study of general and fundamental questions concerning topics like existence, reason, knowledge, Value (ethics and social sciences), value, mind, and language. It is a rational an ...

in 1978, writing a dissertation on

Søren Kierkegaard Søren Aabye Kierkegaard ( , ; ; 5 May 1813 – 11 November 1855) was a Danes, Danish theologian, philosopher, poet, social critic, and religious author who is widely considered to be the first existentialist philosopher. He wrote critical tex ...

and a

Juris Doctor A Juris Doctor, Doctor of Jurisprudence, or Doctor of Law (JD) is a graduate-entry professional degree that primarily prepares individuals to practice law. In the United States and the Philippines, it is the only qualifying law degree. Other j ...

degree in 1982, both from

Northwestern University Northwestern University (NU) is a Private university, private research university in Evanston, Illinois, United States. Established in 1851 to serve the historic Northwest Territory, it is the oldest University charter, chartered university in ...

Career

Previously, Suber was senior

research Research is creative and systematic work undertaken to increase the stock of knowledge. It involves the collection, organization, and analysis of evidence to increase understanding of a topic, characterized by a particular attentiveness to ...

professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an Academy, academic rank at university, universities and other tertiary education, post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin ...

at Earlham College, the open access project director at Public Knowledge, a senior

researcher Research is creative and systematic work undertaken to increase the stock of knowledge. It involves the collection, organization, and analysis of evidence to increase understanding of a topic, characterized by a particular attentiveness to ...

at Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC). He is a member of the Board of ''Enabling Open Scholarship'', the Advisory Boards at the

Wikimedia Foundation The Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. (WMF) is an American 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization headquartered in San Francisco, California, and registered there as foundation (United States law), a charitable foundation. It is the host of Wikipedia, th ...

, the Open Knowledge Foundation, and the advisory boards of other organizations devoted to

and an information commons. Suber worked as a stand-up comic from 1976 to 1981, including an appearance on ''

The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson ''The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson'' is an American television talk show broadcast by NBC. The show was the third installment of ''The Tonight Show''. Hosted by Johnny Carson, it aired from October 1, 1962 to May 22, 1992, replacing ''T ...

'' in 1976. Suber returned to Earlham College as a professor from 1982 to 2003 where he taught classes on philosophy,

law Law is a set of rules that are created and are enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior, with its precise definition a matter of longstanding debate. It has been variously described as a science and as the ar ...

logic Logic is the study of correct reasoning. It includes both formal and informal logic. Formal logic is the study of deductively valid inferences or logical truths. It examines how conclusions follow from premises based on the structure o ...

, and Kant's ''

Critique of Pure Reason The ''Critique of Pure Reason'' (; 1781; second edition 1787) is a book by the German philosopher Immanuel Kant, in which the author seeks to determine the limits and scope of metaphysics. Also referred to as Kant's "First Critique", it was foll ...

'', among other topics. In 1997, he launched Hippias (later Noesis), a web search engine for the field of philosophy. Suber participated in the 2001 meeting that led to the world's first major international open access initiative, the

Budapest Open Access Initiative The Budapest Open Access Initiative (BOAI) is a public statement of principles relating to open access to the Scientific literature, research literature, which was released to the public on February 14, 2002. It arose from a convening in Budape ...

. He wrote Open Access News and the SPARC Open Access Newsletter, considered the most authoritative

blog A blog (a Clipping (morphology), truncation of "weblog") is an informational website consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries also known as posts. Posts are typically displayed in Reverse chronology, reverse chronologic ...

and

newsletter A newsletter is a printed or electronic report containing news concerning the activities of a business or an organization that is sent to its members, customers, employees or other subscribers. Newsletters generally contain one main topic of ...

on open access. He is also the founder of the Open Access Tracking Project, and co-founder, with Robin Peek, of the Open Access Directory. In philosophy, Suber is the author of '' The Paradox of Self-Amendment'', the first book-length study of

self-referential Self-reference is a concept that involves referring to oneself or one's own attributes, characteristics, or actions. It can occur in language, logic, mathematics, philosophy, and other fields. In natural language, natural or formal languages, ...

paradoxes in law, and ''The Case of the Speluncean Explorers: Nine New Opinions'', the first book-length "rehearing" of Lon Fuller's classic, fictional case. He has also written many articles on self-reference, ethics, formal and informal logic, the philosophy of law, and the history of philosophy. He has written many articles on

to science and scholarship. His 2012 book, ''Open Access'', was published by

MIT Press The MIT Press is the university press of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), a private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The MIT Press publishes a number of academic journals and has been a pioneer in the Open Ac ...

and released under a

Creative Commons license A Creative Commons (CC) license is one of several public copyright licenses that enable the free distribution of an otherwise copyrighted "work". A CC license is used when an author wants to give other people the right to share, use, and bu ...

. His latest book is a collection of 44 of his most influential articles about open access, ''Knowledge Unbound: Selected Writings on Open Access, 2002–2010'', also published by

under a

. Suber has directed the development of TagTeam since its start in 2011. TagTeam is an

open-source Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use and view the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open source model is a decentrali ...

, social-tagging platform developed for the Harvard Open Access Project at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at

Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...

Honours and awards

Lingua Franca A lingua franca (; ; for plurals see ), also known as a bridge language, common language, trade language, auxiliary language, link language or language of wider communication (LWC), is a Natural language, language systematically used to make co ...

'' magazine named Suber one of Academia's 20 Most Wired Faculty in 1999. Readers of '' The Charleston Advisor'' gave him a special Readers' Choice Award in October 2006, "Non-Librarian Working for Our Cause." The

American Library Association The American Library Association (ALA) is a nonprofit organization based in the United States that promotes libraries and library education internationally. It is the oldest and largest library association in the world. History 19th century ...

Choice A choice is the range of different things from which a being can choose. The arrival at a choice may incorporate Motivation, motivators and Choice modelling, models. Freedom of choice is generally cherished, whereas a severely limited or arti ...

named his book on Open Access "an Outstanding Academic Title for 2013."

Personal life

Suber is married to Liffey Thorpe, professor emerita of

Classics Classics, also classical studies or Ancient Greek and Roman studies, is the study of classical antiquity. In the Western world, ''classics'' traditionally refers to the study of Ancient Greek literature, Ancient Greek and Roman literature and ...

at Earlham College, with whom he has two daughters. Since 2003, he and Thorpe have resided in Brooksville, Maine. His mother was Grace Mary Stern, who served in both houses of the Illinois state legislature.

Selected publications

* ''Knowledge Unbound'' (MIT Press, 2016) *
Updates and supplements
* ''The Case of the Speluncean Explorers: Nine New Opinions'' (Routledge, 1998) * ''The Paradox of Self-Amendment: A Study of Logic, Law, Omnipotence, and Change'' (Peter Lang Publishing, 1990) * ''Self-Reference: Reflections on Reflexivity'', co-edited with Steven J. Bartlett (Martinus Nijhoff, 1987)

Notes

References

External links

Suber's home page
(Suber's former blog, May 2002 - April 2010)

(Suber's former newsletter, March 2001 - June 2013)
Peter Suber's Writings on Open AccessPeter Suber's writings on philosophy and other subjectsHarvard Open Access Project (HOAP)Open Access Directory (OAD)Open Access Tracking Project (OATP)
() * {{DEFAULTSORT:Suber, Peter 1951 births Access to Knowledge activists American bloggers 21st-century American philosophers American stand-up comedians Berkman Fellows Living people Open access activists Copyright activists Copyright scholars People from Highland Park, Illinois People from Brooksville, Maine Earlham College alumni Earlham College faculty Highland Park High School (Illinois) alumni Northwestern University alumni Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law alumni Wikimedia Foundation Advisory Board members Articles containing video clips Comedians from Illinois Scholarly communication 21st-century American non-fiction writers 21st-century American comedians