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The purpose of this article is to present an overview of The European Library as a portal and discuss the issues of usability this gives in delivery of multicultural, multilingual access to the cultural heritage in Europe's National Libraries.

The approach is a description of the service its business model, management structure and technical base with an emphasis on how this does or does not work for the user.

Portals are not great user experiences. This is further complicated in the case of The European Library by the language barrier for search and retrieval across national boundaries. However, the existence of The European Library is at least of accessing material that would otherwise remain only accessible within the library itself. It is also a big step towards the creation of a European Digital Library.

The paper discusses more of the effects of such a portal on the user than has elsewhere been published. The value is in its description of collaborative working, its example of a management and organisational structure, its working business model and the technical solution that sits behind it. As an example of creating cross country and cultural access to digitised information it has been successful to date.

The purpose of this article is to provide a review of the most recent literature concerning document supply and related matters.

Includes the reading of over 140 published works, including journals, monographs, reports and web sites.

Finds that open access is moving from debate to reality, that debate continues about the future of scholarly communication and there is growing hostility to big deals.

Provides a useful source of information for librarians and others interested in document supply and related matters.

The purpose of this article is to provide a review of the most recent literature concerning document supply and related matters.

The reading of over 140 published works, including journals, monographs, reports and web sites.

Finds that usage statistics are still not giving a clear indication of the importance of document supply, but it is confirmed that the large proportion of demand comes from a small number of titles. Open access continues to be top news, in particular the mass digitisation of books. Quite a lot on document supply – Kuwait, USA, Germany, Norway, UK and South Africa.

Provides a useful source of information for librarians and others interested in document supply and related matters.

From 3‐5 February 2004, the Bielefeld University Library in Germany was host to the 7th International Bielefeld Conference, “Thinking beyond digital libraries – designing the information strategy for the next decade”. Main themes to the conference were the strategic positioning and future direction of research libraries and their institutions that will lead to e‐scholarship. The agenda included: new challenges and services of academic libraries: scholarly publishing and the implication on future strategies for scholars, libraries and publishers; the potential of search engine technology for digital libraries; and next generation scholarly information portals. In the excellent talks from experts from all around the world, stimulus was provided to integrate the theories and information presented and discussed into everyday practices and routine business.

The implications of the Single European Market for libraries and information services are considered with some examples of what is being done. After a general introduction to 1992, the Plan of Action for Libraries in the EC is considered and the library implications of the five Action Lines. The roles of European Documentation Centres, EC Depository Libraries, European Reference Centres; Euro Information Centres and online databases are considered, together with developments in co‐operation and also the human implications.