The evolution of scholarly publishing is a good illustration of recent changes in technology. Many organizations are developing and operating electronic publishing systems that will change the way scholars, scientists, and technical professionals access information. Scholars obtain access to periodical literature in their fields through journal subscriptions, book purchases, library use (including photocopying), interlibrary loan, article reprints, and a few other less frequently used services. In the United States, there are several commercial vendors of electronic full text databases. Although most electronic publishing systems in use today rely on telecommunications, distributed storage media with dense capacity such as compact disk read-only memories (CD-ROMs) are becoming more popular. Electronic publishing may change the content, process, and format of journals. The concept of electronic journals remains largely a concept, yet one that is driving a great deal of research, development, and entrepreneurship. Publishing standardization, the rising cost of print journal publication, and the increasing power and rapid decline in prices for microcomputers, storage, and output devices, give rise to a reasonable expectation that electronic journals will be a viable channel for scholarly communication. (SRT)