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With the cost of periodical subscriptions increasing every year, our library, like most others, has been attempting to limit our periodicals expenditures and to restrict our current subscriptions to those journals most important to our students and faculty. This article is a report of a study done to help determine which periodicals we should continue to receive and those which we could cancel.

It is obvious that when resources are insufficient to meet all legitimate demands, priorities should be established. During the last decade, funds available to academic institutions in English‐speaking countries have been reduced while the information sources on which they depend continue to increase and the changing technology of access provides new challenges for academics and librarians.

Evidence provided by the Dainton Report indicates that special libraries in the UK are far from fully exploiting the photocopying services provided by the national libraries. As these photocopying services are legally obliged to operate at cost, they offer significant economies to any special library which exploits them systematically. This paper describes a simple graphical method of estimating the savings that can be made, or the extended subject coverage that can be obtained at no additional cost, by substituting photocopies for relevant papers in the peripheral periodicals relating to any well‐defined scientific or technical subject. Though photocopying charges must be realistic, the confident exploitation of the national photocopying services depends on the avoidance of arbitrary jumps in photocopying charges.

Looks at the gloomy economic conditions with the attendant foreign exchange constraints which made the ordering of periodicals impossible in Ghana from the latter half of the 1970s up to the mid‐1980s. Compares this with the situation in Nigeria during this period. This bleak picture, which stifled academic work, compelled the governments of the two West African nations to adopt the Structural Adjustment Programme in the Educational Sector in addition to other sectors. Views critically the measures taken in resolving the crisis, especially with regard to the ordering of periodicals to sustain academic work. Considers also whether these measures were enough to eliminate the gaps in the holdings that were noticeable as a result of the economic crunch. Considers benefits gained by the adoption of the Structural Adjustment Programme. Discusses another vital issue, whether the benefits gained can be sustained when the Structural Adjustment Programme comes to an end. Puts forward suggestions for sustainability, and concludes that the Universities cannot revisit the hard times of the 1970s and it will be helpful to pay heed to the recommendations.

The problems of interlibrary loans will always be with us; even in the past, no university could afford to buy or store all the material which its members might require, and with the present ever‐increasing amount of print and near‐print which is flowing from the presses of the world, the learned institutions might well be forgiven if they were to throw up their collective hands in despair. But whatever the future may hold, it has not yet come to that, and the don or research student still finds that even when his own library's resources are exhausted only one request in twenty which he may make through an interlibrary loan scheme is not eventually fulfilled [App. 3, Tab. 1].

The German Iron and Steel Institute in Düsseldorf invited me to spend three weeks visiting technical information services on the Continent. Three aims were kept in view: to examine methods of operating information services, to study the attitude of industrial management and research toward technical information, to contact some of the leading people in the technical information field in Western Europe. Twenty‐two technical information organizations are described.

Government libraries in Saudi Arabia are attached to the Ministries which organize and administrate them. They serve a specialized body of users by means of special collections and services.

The purpose of this paper is to study the effects of exchange rates of foreign currencies on the material budget in the libraries in India.

A sample of journals costing in foreign currency was selected for the purpose of study. A comparison of inflation rate pertaining to serial price is done with the general rate of inflation in India.

The paper finds that exchange rates of foreign currencies have extensive impact on the acquisitions budget of the libraries in India.

Academic institutions may protect the buying powers of the libraries while allocating funds, keeping in mind the strengthening or weakening of Indian Rupee in comparison to foreign currencies.

This is one of the comprehensive studies on the impact of foreign exchange on subscription in Indian libraries system.

Attempts to examine in detail the subject of book aid and its role in overcoming the problems associated with scarcity of information materials in developing countries. Highlights the pros and cons of book donation. Concludes that book donation can be beneficial in this part of the world only if national clearing houses are set up to co‐ordinate the in‐and‐out flow of these information materials.

A study was conducted to assess the potential of six library and information education programs in preparing manpower for the digital environment. The situation of six schools in the member nations of the Gulf Cooperation Council has been analyzed by collecting data from the schools heads and 49 faculty members, focusing on: curricular changes; faculty size and its research and publication record; hardware equipment and software packages available for instruction; use of digital resources such as databases, online services, and electronic utilities for instruction; and availability of periodicals, books, and electronic resources for instructional activity. This study has brought forth a number of crucial issues related to these factors. Unless these schools take significant developmental or remedial initiatives, they cannot fare well in coping with the changes wrought by the digital imperatives.