Periodical prices coniinue to rise at a rate that surpasses inflation.Escalating periodical prices, fueled ty higher paper prices and other publishng costs, force libraries to cancel subscnp-tions. This may. in turn, force publishers to increase prices even more. The resulting vicious cycle, combined with decreasing or stagnant library budgets, erodes th number of periodicals offered to library users. While interlibrary loan (ILL) and commercial document delivery offer lime-tested, viable alternatives, most librarians and end-users agree that there is no substitute for owning the physical periodical.