The OpenURL framework is the result of research on open and context-sensitive reference linking in the web-based scholarly information environment, conducted by Herbert Van de Sompel in 1999-2000 while at Ghent University and at the Research Library of the Los Alamos Laboratory. A series of experiments showed how electronic information resources could delegate the generation of reference links to third parties, thus allowing for the establishment of an information environment that is interlinked according to the third parties' preferences. The proposed solution builds on the introduction of a linking server operated by those third parties, as well as on the adoption of an interoperability specification connecting information resources and linking servers.

Van de Sompel, Hochstenbach and Beit-Arie published a draft version of such interoperability specification as the OpenURL, early 2000. As part of the experiments, a prototype linking server was designed and developed in a collaboration between Hochstenbach and Van de Sompel. Later, it was acquired by Ex Libris, which now successfully markets it as the SFX server. Soon after the publication of the OpenURL draft, leading information providers started adopting the specification. A further experiment illustrated the ease by which the OpenURL framework and the DOI-based CrossRef linking approach could be integrated and how, through this integration, they mutually enforced each other.

As a result, NISO started the standardization of OpenURL in March of 2001. By that time, Van de Sompel and Beit-Arie had generalized the OpenURL ideas to become applicable beyond the scholarly information environment in the Bison-Futé model. That model lies at the basis of the work of the NISO AX committee, of which Herbert Van de Sompel is an active member. The introduction of open linking capabilities is generally considered to be one of the most important recent innovations in the scholarly information environment. The OpenURL Framework is now ANSI/NISO Z39.88-2004.

At the Research Library of the Los Alamos National Laboratory, the OpenURL specification and the LinkSeeker implementation of the SFX server are used to dynamically interlink internal and external information resources, in a way that meets the preferences of its cross-organizational customer base. The generalized Bison-Futé concepts will play a crucial role in the communication with "document-relationship-servers" that the Prototyping team is exploring.