ABSTRACT
Scholarly journals have been around since 1665. I have been involved in buying and selling them for 32 years, about 10% of the total time journals have existed. In those 32 years with which I am familiar, scientific journals moved from the very heady days of their second phase (the extraordinary post-World War II burst of growth, fed by greatly expanding international research, proliferating university campuses, and voracious library collection developers) into the just-launched and uncertain third phase, marked by tight budgets, the Web and a reexamination of the roles played by all participants. 1 , 2 While perhaps not as extreme as a rollercoaster, the ride has certainly had its ups and downs and there were times when we all had an uneasy feeling in our stomachs.
