This study takes a cost-effective approach to the examination of the alternative
methods of article supply, to ascertain not only the cheapest service but also to rank
the alternatives according to their effectiveness or performance Three alternative
methods of article supply are considered subscribing to a periodical title (ownership),
individual article supply (IAS) provided by two electromc document delivery services,
ContentsFirst/ArticlesFirst of OCLC FirstSearch and UnCover, and traditional article
supply through the British Library Document Supply Centre A comparison of the
alternatives is made to identify their differences The elements and measures of a costeffective
analysis are discussed and in particular cost-per-use, which is derived for all
the alternatives
The operational costs of the alternatives are obtained by taking a management
accounting approach and are examined in relation to the provision of the services
within the library of St. Patrick's College, Maynooth The cost-per-use of owning a
periodical title is calculated based on the operational costs of the Periodicals
Department of the College, its subscription price and a lifetime use determined by
examination of the current requests for articles made through the Inter-Library Loans
Department of the library The cost-per-use for the other services are also obtained
based on their operational costs and document delivery charges
The result of this study shows that based on the cost-per-use of all the alternatives,
access should continue to be the method of article supply for all but one title currently
taken as ILLs in Maynooth College In Maynooth, article supply by mail should
continue to be provided by the BLDSC but consideration should be given to providing
fax delivery through UnCover ContentsFirst/ArticlesFirst and the other databases on
FirstSearch do provide good title coverage, multi-user and end-user user and
predictable costs but as yet does not provide the perfect EDD solution in terms of
either Internet access or document delivery.
The results can be used by other libraries but may need to be adapted to suit local
circumstances, where priorities and costs may be different to those of St Patrick's
College, Maynooth. The results and methodology can be used to alert libraries to the
cost differential of the different methods of article supply, possible advantages and
disadvantages of EDD services studied and can provide an aid to the evaluation and
selection of services
