TRENDS IN SCIENTIFIC SCHOLARLY JOURNAL PUBLISHING IN THE UNITED-STATES

Scientific scholarly publishing has experienced dramatic economic chan ge over the past few decades. Unfortunately, there has been little doc umentation concerning details of such change, other than reported pric e increases. In mid-1995 the University of Tennessee School of Informa tion Sciences/Center for Information Studies was awarded the Special L ibraries Association Steven I. Goldspiel Memorial Research Grant. The purpose of this grant is to produce relevant data and: information to examine the scholarly journal publishing system in order to better und erstand what has happened and to help authors, publishers, librarians, readers, and library funders avoid mistakes of the past when dealing with emerging electronic journals and article distribution. This paper describes current scientific journal publishing in the United States, trends over I:he past twenty years, and data that help explain the pr ice and demand relationship involving individual and institutional sub scriptions.