Carol Tenopir and Donald King (1999) Towards Electronic Journals: Realities for Scientists, Librarians and Publishers . Book review by Simon Buckingham Shum

The quotes on this book's cover from eminent figures do indeed reflect its contribution as a compendium (488 pages) of facts, figures and analysis on the production and use of scholarly journals. King and Tenopir have been working in the field of scientific knowledge dissemination for many years (King's earliest listed reference going back to 1971), and bring a carefully weighed perspective on both paper and digital technologies for research dissemination. The subtitle, "Realities for Scientists, Librarians and Publishers" reflects their concern to represent the interests of all the key stakeholders in the situation in which we now find ourselves. Moreover, their understanding of these concerns helps to explain the inertia of an industry which has evolved over 300 years from the first journals in order to satisfy the varied agendas that are in play today. They emphasise throughout that innovations in the process or product of scientific publishing will have to clearly prove their worth to be sustained in the long term. This may seem like stating the obvious, but amidst the charged, frictionless rhetoric of the internet and e-business, this is a welcome reality check.