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.