Improving access: is there any hope?

World‐wide calls for improvements in access to journal literature are being answered by a plethora of projects and services. Consortial purchasing, national licences and “big deals” dominate changes in collection development. Moves to set up affordable easy‐to‐use electronic document delivery services offer an alternative model based on single‐article purchase. More radical barrier‐free access models are moving the economic emphasis away from purchasing to input‐payments. Are all these projects and services making a difference or will access to journal literature be no better in years to come than it is now? It is arguable that only those initiatives which are developing new models through collaboration between the stakeholders will succeed in making a major breakthrough in access.